Chromium is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

project, mainly developed and maintained by

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

. This

codebase In software development, a codebase (or code base) is a collection of source code used to build a particular software system, application, or software component. Typically, a codebase includes only human-written source code files; thus, a codeb ...

provides the vast majority of

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

for the

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS ...

browser, which is

proprietary software Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and int ...

and has some additional features. The Chromium codebase is widely used.

Microsoft Edge Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...

Samsung Internet Samsung Internet Browser (or simply Samsung Internet or ''S Browser'') is a mobile web browser for smartphones and tablets developed by Samsung Electronics. It is based on the open-source Chromium project. It comes pre-installed on Samsung Ga ...

Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

, and many other browsers are based on the Chromium code. Moreover, significant portions of the code are used by several app frameworks. Google does not provide an official

stable A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals and livestock. There are many different types of stables in use today; the ...

version of the Chromium browser, but does provide official API keys for some features, such as speech to text and translation.

Licensing

Chromium is a

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

project. The Google-authored portion is shared under the 3-clause BSD license. Third party dependencies are subject to a variety of licenses, including

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

LGPL The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...

Ms-PL The Shared Source Initiative (SSI) is a source-available software licensing scheme launched by Microsoft in May 2001. The program includes a spectrum of technologies and licenses, and most of its source code offerings are available for download aft ...

, and an MPL/

GPL The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general u ...

tri-license Multi-licensing is the practice of distributing software under two or more different sets of terms and conditions. This may mean multiple different software licenses or sets of licenses. Prefixes may be used to indicate the number of licenses ...

. This licensing permits any party to build the

and share the resulting browser

executable In computing, executable code, an executable file, or an executable program, sometimes simply referred to as an executable or binary, causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instruction (computer science), instructi ...

with the Chromium name and logo. Thus many

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

s do this, as well as

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

and

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused, free and open-source, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by forking NetBSD 1.0. According to the website, the OpenBSD project em ...

Differences from Google Chrome

Chromium provides the vast majority of source code for

, so the name "Chromium" was chosen by Google because

chromium Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardne ...

metal is used in

chrome plating Chrome plating (less commonly chromium plating) is a technique of electroplating a thin layer of chromium onto a metal object. A chrome-plated item is called ''chrome''. The chromed layer can be decorative, provide corrosion resistance, ease ...

Features

Chromium lacks the following Chrome features: *Automatic browser updates *API keys for some

Google services The following is a list of products, services, and apps provided by Google. Active, soon-to-be discontinued, and discontinued products, services, tools, hardware, and other applications are broken out into designated sections. Web-based product ...

, including browser sync *The

Widevine Widevine is a proprietary digital rights management (DRM) technology from Google used by the Chromium and Firefox web browsers (including some derivatives), Android MediaDRM, Android TV, and other consumer electronics devices. Widevine technolog ...

DRM DRM may refer to: Government, military and politics * Defense reform movement, U.S. campaign inspired by Col. John Boyd * Democratic Republic of Madagascar, a former socialist state (1975–1992) on Madagascar * Direction du renseignement milita ...

module *Licensed

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or da ...

s for the popular

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distr ...

video and AAC audio formats * Tracking mechanisms for usage and crash reports

Branding and licensing

While Chrome has the same

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

functionality as Chromium, it changes the color scheme to the Google-branded one. Unlike Chromium, Chrome is not open-source, so its binaries are licensed as

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

under the ''Google Chrome Terms of Service''.

Development

The Chromium browser

contains about 35 million

source lines of code Source lines of code (SLOC), also known as lines of code (LOC), is a software metric used to measure the size of a computer program by counting the number of lines in the text of the program's source code. SLOC is typically used to predict the am ...

Contributors

Chromium has been a

project since its inception, and Google employees have done the bulk of the

development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development hell, when a project is stuck in development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting *Development (music), the process thematic material is reshaped * Photograph ...

work. Google refers to this project and the offshoot

ChromiumOS ChromiumOS is a free and open-source operating system designed for running web applications and browsing the World Wide Web. It is the open-source version of ChromeOS, a Linux-based operating system made by Google. Like ChromeOS, ChromiumOS is ...

as "the Chromium projects", and its employees use @chromium.org

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

addresses for this development work. However, in terms of governance, the Chromium projects are not independent entities; Google retains firm control of them. The Chromium browser codebase is widely used, so others have made important contributions, most notably

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

Igalia Igalia is a private, worker-owned, employee-run cooperative model consultancy focused on open source software. Based in A Coruña, Galicia (Spain), Igalia is known for its contributions and commitments to both open-source and open standards. Igal ...

Yandex Yandex LLC (russian: link=no, Яндекс, p=ˈjandəks) is a Russian multinational technology company providing Internet-related products and services, including an Internet search engine, information services, e-commerce, transportation, maps ...

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

, LG,

, and Brave. Some employees of these companies also have @chromium.org email addresses.

Programming languages

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

is the primary

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

, comprising about half of the codebase. This includes the Blink and V8

engines An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power g ...

, the implementation of

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

and other

protocols Protocol may refer to: Sociology and politics * Protocol (politics), a formal agreement between nation states * Protocol (diplomacy), the etiquette of diplomacy and affairs of state * Etiquette, a code of personal behavior Science and technology ...

, the internal caching system, and other essential browser components. Some of the

is implemented in

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...

, and

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

. An extensive collection of

web platform The Web platform is a collection of technologies developed as open standards by the World Wide Web Consortium and other standardization bodies such as the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group, the Unicode Consortium, the Internet Engin ...

tests are also written in these languages. About 10% of the codebase is written in C. This is mostly from third-party

libraries A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

that provide essential functionality, such as

SQLite SQLite (, ) is a database engine written in the C programming language. It is not a standalone app; rather, it is a library that software developers embed in their apps. As such, it belongs to the family of embedded databases. It is the m ...

and numerous

s. Support for

mobile Mobile may refer to: Places * Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city * Mobile County, Alabama * Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S. * Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Mobile ( ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s requires special languages:

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

for Android, and for

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

both

Swift Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIFT, ...

and

Objective-C Objective-C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language. Originally developed by Brad Cox and Tom Love in the early 1980s, it was selected by NeXT for its NeXTS ...

Logistics

The

bug tracking system A bug tracking system or defect tracking system is a software application that keeps track of reported software bugs in software development projects. It may be regarded as a type of issue tracking system. Many bug tracking systems, such as those ...

is a publicly accessible website. Participants are identified by their

addresses. The Chromium continuous integration system automatically builds and tests the codebase several times a day. Builds are identified by a four-part

version number Software versioning is the process of assigning either unique ''version names'' or unique ''version numbers'' to unique states of computer software. Within a given version number category (e.g., major or minor), these numbers are generally assig ...

that is major.minor.build.patch. This versioning scheme and the

branch points In the mathematical field of complex analysis, a branch point of a multi-valued function (usually referred to as a "multifunction" in the context of complex analysis) is a point such that if the function is n-valued (has n values) at that point, ...

that occur every six to seven weeks are from

and its

development cycle In software engineering, a software development process is a process of dividing software development work into smaller, parallel, or sequential steps or sub-processes to improve design, product management. It is also known as a software devel ...

History

2008 to 2010

debuted in September 2008, and along with its release, the Chromium source code was also made available, allowing builds to be constructed from it. Upon release, Chrome was criticized for storing a

user Ancient Egyptian roles * User (ancient Egyptian official), an ancient Egyptian nomarch (governor) of the Eighth Dynasty * Useramen, an ancient Egyptian vizier also called "User" Other uses * User (computing), a person (or software) using an ...

password A password, sometimes called a passcode (for example in Apple devices), is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of ...

s without the protection of a master password. Google has insisted that a master password provides no real

security Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons and social ...

against knowledgeable

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...

s, but users argued that it would protect against co-workers or family members borrowing a computer and being able to view stored passwords as

plaintext In cryptography, plaintext usually means unencrypted information pending input into cryptographic algorithms, usually encryption algorithms. This usually refers to data that is transmitted or stored unencrypted. Overview With the advent of comp ...

. In December 2009, Chromium developer P. Kasting stated: "A master password was issue 1397. That issue is closed. We will not implement a master password. Not now, not ever. Arguing for it won't make it happen. 'A bunch of people would like it' won't make it happen. Our design decisions are not democratic. You cannot always have what you want." File-Chromium-Linux-Alpha

Version 3 was the first

alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἄλφα, ''álpha'', or ell, άλφα, álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , whic ...

available for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

. Chromium soon incorporated native theming for Linux, using the

GTK+ GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and proprie ...

toolkit to allow it fit into the

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

desktop environment. Version 3 also introduced

JavaScript engine A JavaScript engine is a software component that executes JavaScript code. The first JavaScript engines were mere interpreters, but all relevant modern engines use just-in-time compilation for improved performance. JavaScript engines are typica ...

optimizations and user-selectable themes. Version 6 introduced features for user interface

minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

, as one of Google's goals was to make the browser "feel lightweight (cognitively and physically) and fast". The changes were a unified tools menu, no home button by default (although user configurable), a combined reload/stop button, and the bookmark bar deactivated by default. It also introduced an integrated

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

reader,

WebM WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML5 video and the HTML5 audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponsored ...

and

VP8 VP8 is an open and royalty-free video compression format released by On2 Technologies in 2008. Initially released as a proprietary successor to On2's previous VP7 format, VP8 was released as an open and royalty-free format in May 2010 after Goo ...

support for use with

HTML5 video The HTML5 specification introduced the video element for the purpose of playing videos, partially replacing the object element. HTML5 video is intended by its creators to become the new standard way to show video on the web, instead of the previo ...

, and a smarter URL bar. Version 7 boosted

HTML5 HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...

performance to twice that of prior versions via

hardware acceleration Hardware acceleration is the use of computer hardware designed to perform specific functions more efficiently when compared to software running on a general-purpose central processing unit (CPU). Any transformation of data that can be calcula ...

. Version 8 focused on improved integration into

ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes stylized as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is a Linux-based operating system designed by Google. It is derived from the open-source ChromiumOS and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interfac ...

and improved

cloud In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may co ...

features. These include background

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serve ...

s, host remoting (allowing users centrally to control features and settings on other computers) and cloud printing. Version 9 introduced a URL bar feature for exposing

phishing Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious softwar ...

attacks, plus sandboxing for the

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...

plug-in. Other additions were the

WebGL WebGL (Short for Web Graphics Library) is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins. WebGL is fully integrated with other web standards, allowing GPU-accelera ...

library and access for the new

Chrome Web Store Chrome Web Store is Google's online store for its Chrome web browser. As of 2019, Chrome Web Store hosts about 190,000 extensions and web apps. History Chrome Web Store was publicly unveiled in December 2010, and was opened on February 11, 2011 ...

2011

In February, Google announced that it was considering large-scale

(UI) changes, including at least partial elimination of the URL bar, which had been a mainstay of browsers since the early years of

the Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

. The proposed UI was to be a consolidation of the row of tabs and the row of navigation buttons, the menu, and URL bar into a single row. The justification was freeing up more screen space for web page content. Google acknowledged that this would result in URLs not always being visible to the user, that navigation controls and menus may lose their context, and that the resulting single line could be quite crowded. However, by August, Google decided that these changes were too risky and shelved the idea. In March, Google announced other directions for the project. Development priorities focused on reducing the size of the

, integrating

s and plug-ins,

cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...

, and

touch In physiology, the somatosensory system is the network of neural structures in the brain and body that produce the perception of touch ( haptic perception), as well as temperature ( thermoception), body position (proprioception), and pain. It ...

interface support. Thus a multi-profile button was introduced to the UI, allowing users to log into multiple Google and other accounts in the same browser instance. Other additions were

malware Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, depri ...

detection and support for hardware-accelerated

transforms. By May, the results of Google's attempts to reduce the file size of Chromium were already being noted. Much of the early work in this area concentrated on shrinking the size of

WebKit WebKit is a browser engine developed by Apple and primarily used in its Safari web browser, as well as on the iOS and iPadOS version of any web browser. WebKit is also used by the BlackBerry Browser, PlayStation consoles beginning from the PS ...

, the

image An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...

resizer, and the Android build system. Subsequent work introduced a more compact mobile version that reduced the vertical space of the UI. Other changes in 2011 were

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...

acceleration on all pages, adding support for the new Web Audio API, and the

Google Native Client Google Native Client (NaCl) is a discontinued sandboxing technology for running either a subset of Intel x86, ARM, or MIPS native code, or a portable executable, in a sandbox. It allows safely running native code from a web browser, independ ...

(NaCl) which permits native code supplied by third parties as platform-neutral binaries to be securely executed within the browser itself. Google's Skia graphics library was also made available for all Chromium versions.

Since 2012

The sync service added for Google Chrome in 2012 could also be used by Chromium builds. The same year, a new API for high-quality video and audio communication was added, enabling

s to access the user's

webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or peripheral d ...

and

microphone A microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike (), is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and public ...

after asking permission to do so. Then

accelerated video decoding for Windows and support for the

QUIC QUIC (pronounced "quick") is a general-purpose transport layer network protocol initially designed by Jim Roskind at Google, implemented, and deployed in 2012, announced publicly in 2013 as experimentation broadened, and described at an IETF meet ...

protocol were added. In 2013, Chromium's modified

rendering engine Rendering or image synthesis is the process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from a 2D or 3D model by means of a computer program. The resulting image is referred to as the render. Multiple models can be defined ...

was officially forked as the Blink engine. Other changes in 2013 were the ability to reset user profiles and new

browser extension A browser extension is a small software module for customizing a web browser. Browsers typically allow a variety of extensions, including user interface modifications, cookie management, ad blocking, and the custom scripting and styling of web p ...

APIs. Tab indicators for audio and webcam usage were also added, as was automatic blocking of files detected as

. Version 69 introduced a new browser theme, as part of the tenth anniversary of Google Chrome. The same year, new measures were added to curtail abusive advertising. Starting in March 2021, the Google Chrome sync service can no longer be used by Chromium builds.

Browsers based on Chromium

In addition to Google Chrome, many other notable web browsers have been based on the Chromium code.

Active

Amazon Silk Amazon Silk is a web browser developed by Amazon. It was launched in November 2011 for Kindle Fire and Fire Phone, and a Fire TV version was launched in November 2017. The addition of Silk to the Echo Show was announced at an Amazon event in Se ...

Avast Secure Browser Avast Secure Browser (formerly Avast! SafeZone) is an Avast Software web browser included for optional installation in the Avast Antivirus installer since 2016, but it is also available on its website. It is based on the open source Chromium pr ...

developed by Avast *

Blisk A blisk (portmanteau of bladed disk) is a turbomachine component comprising both rotor disk and blades. It serves as a critical component of the engine compressor to allow a sufficient quantity of compressed air to enter the engine for combustion ...

is a browser available for Windows 7 and later, OS X 10.9 and later that aims to provide an array of useful tools for

Web development Web development is the work involved in developing a website for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). Web development can range from developing a simple single static page of plain text to complex web applications ...

. * Brave is an open-source web browser that aims to block website trackers and remove intrusive internet advertisements. *

CodeWeavers CodeWeavers is a company that sells a proprietary version of Wine called CrossOver for running Windows applications on macOS, ChromeOS and Linux. The company was founded in 1996 as a consultancy, eventually moving entirely over to Wine developmen ...

CrossOver Crossover may refer to: Entertainment Albums and songs * ''Cross Over'' (Dan Peek album) * ''Crossover'' (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles album), 1987 * ''Crossover'' (Intrigue album) * ''Crossover'' (Hitomi Shimatani album) * ''Crossover'' (Yoshino ...

Chromium is an unofficial bundle of a

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

derivative and Chromium Developer Build 21 for Linux and macOS, first released on 15 September 2008 by CodeWeavers as part of their CrossOver project. *

Comodo Dragon Comodo Dragon is a freeware web browser. It is based on Chromium and is produced by Comodo Group. Sporting a similar interface to Google Chrome, Dragon does not implement Chrome's user tracking and some other potentially privacy-compromising f ...

is a rebranded version of Chromium for 32-bit Windows 8.1, 8, Windows 7 and Vista produced by the

Comodo Group Xcitium, formerly known as Comodo Security Solutions, Inc., is a cybersecurity company headquartered in Bloomfield, New Jersey in the United States. History The company was founded in 1998 in the United Kingdom by Melih Abdulhayoğlu. The compa ...

. According to the developer, it provides improved security and privacy features. * Cốc Cốc is a freeware web browser focused on the Vietnamese market, developed by Vietnamese company Cốc Cốc, based on Chromium open-source code for Windows. According to data published by

StatCounter StatCounter is a web traffic analysis website started in 1999. Access to basic services is free to use and advanced services can cost between and US$119 a month. StatCounter is based in Dublin, Ireland. The statistics from StatCounter are used ...

in July 2013, Cốc Cốc has passed

to become one of the top 5 most popular browsers in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

within 2 months after its official release. *

Dissenter A dissenter (from the Latin ''dissentire'', "to disagree") is one who dissents (disagrees) in matters of opinion, belief, etc. Usage in Christianity Dissent from the Anglican church In the social and religious history of England and Wales, and ...

is a fork of Brave browser that adds a comment section to any URL. *

Epic Browser Epic is a privacy-centric web browser. It was developed by Hidden Reflex, a software product company founded by Alok Bhardwaj, using Chromium source code. Epic is always in private browsing mode, and exiting the browser deletes all browser data. ...

is a privacy-centric web browser developed by Hidden Reflex of India and based on Chromium source code. *

Falkon Falkon (formerly QupZilla) is a free and open-source web browser developed by KDE. It is built on the QtWebEngine, which is a wrapper for the Chromium browser core. Both KaOS and openMandriva Lx use Falkon as their default browser. Featu ...

an open-source Qt-based GUI, using the Chromium-based QtWebEngine. * qutebrowser a Qt-based GUI with Vim-like keybindings, using the Chromium-based QtWebEngine. *

is Chromium-based as of 15 January 2020. * Naver Whale is a South Korean

developed by

Naver Corporation The Naver Corporation is a South Korean internet conglomerate headquartered in Seongnam that operates the search engine Naver. Naver established itself as an early pioneer in the use of user-generated content through the creation of the onlin ...

, which is also available in English. It became available on Android on 13 April 2018. *

began to base its web browser on Chromium with version 15. * Qihoo 360 Secure Browser is a Chromium-based Chinese web browser developed by

Qihoo Qihoo 360 (; approximate pronunciation CHEE-hoo), full name 360 Security Technology Inc., is a Chinese internet security company that has developed the antivirus software programs 360 Safeguard and 360 Mobile Safe, the Web browser 360 Secure Brows ...

. *

shipped its first Chromium-based browser in a

Galaxy S4 The Samsung Galaxy S4 is an Android smartphone produced by Samsung Electronics as the fourth smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series and was first shown publicly on March 14, 2013, at Samsung Mobile Unpacked in New York City. It is the succe ...

model released in 2013. *

Sleipnir In Norse mythology, Sleipnir (Old Norse: ; "slippy"Orchard (1997:151). or "the slipper"Kermode (1904:6).) is an eight-legged horse ridden by Odin. Sleipnir is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional ...

is a Chromium derivative browser for Windows and macOS. One of its main features is linking to Web apps (Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, etc.) and smartphone apps (Google Map, etc.). It also boasts what it calls "beautiful text," and has unique graphical tabs, among other features. * Slimjet: A Chromium-based web browser released by FlashPeak that features built-in webpage translation, PDF viewing capability and a PPAPI flash plugin, features usually missing from Chromium-based browsers currently not supported. * SRWare Iron is a

release of Chromium for Windows, macOS and Linux, offering both installable and portable versions. Iron disables certain configurable Chromium features that could share information with third parties and additional tracking features that Google adds to its Chrome browser. *

ungoogled-chromium ungoogled-chromium is a free and open-source variant of the Chromium web browser that removes all Google-specific web services. It achieves this with a series of patches applied to the Chromium codebase during the compilation process. The ...

is a privacy-focused browser based on Chromium. Initially developed for

, versions for Windows and MacOS were later added. It removes all Google services and analytics built into Chromium. *

Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespread a ...

is a browser for Windows, macOS and Linux developed by Vivaldi Technologies. Chromium-based Vivaldi aims to revive the rich features of the Presto-era Opera with its own proprietary modifications. *

Yandex Browser Yandex Browser (Russian: Яндекс.Браузер) is a freeware web browser developed by the Russian technology corporation Yandex that uses the Blink web browser engine and is based on the Chromium open source project. The browser checks w ...

is a browser created by the Russian software company

for macOS, Windows, Linux, Android and iOS. The browser integrates Yandex services, which include a

search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...

, a

machine translation Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT (not to be confused with computer-aided translation, machine-aided human translation or interactive translation), is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates t ...

service and

cloud storage Cloud storage is a model of computer data storage in which the digital data is stored in logical pools, said to be on "the cloud". The physical storage spans multiple servers (sometimes in multiple locations), and the physical environment is t ...

. On Android it provides ability to install chrome extensions on a mobile browser.

Discontinued

* Beaker, a

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...

web browser * Flock – a browser that specialized in providing social networking and had

Web 2.0 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and ...

facilities built into its user interface. It was based on Chromium starting with version 3.0. Flock was discontinued in April 2011. *

Redcore Redcore ( zh, s=红芯浏览器, l=red core browser)Official website: , where it shows that the browser is named "Redcore Browser" ( zh, 红芯浏览器), and the browser engine is "Redcore" ( zh, 红芯内核) is a web browser developed by Chines ...

– a browser developed by Chinese company Redcore Times (Beijing) Technology Ltd. and marketed as a domestic product that was developed in-house, but was revealed to be based on Chromium *

Rockmelt Rockmelt is a discontinued proprietary social media web browser developed by Tim Howes and Eric Vishria based on the Google Chromium project, incorporating social media features such as Facebook chat, Twitter notifications and widgetised areas f ...

– a Chromium-based browser for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS under a commercial proprietary licence. It integrated features from Facebook and Twitter, but was discontinued in April 2013 and fully retired at 10am PT on 31 July 2013. On 2 August 2013, Rockmelt was acquired by

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...

Rockmelt's extensions and its website was shut down after 31 August 2013. Yahoo! plans to integrate Rockmelt's technology into other products. * SalamWeb – a web browser based on Chromium for Muslims, which only allowed

Halal ''Halal'' (; ar, حلال, ) is an Arabic word that translates to "permissible" in English. In the Quran, the word ''halal'' is contrasted with ''haram'' (forbidden). This binary opposition was elaborated into a more complex classification kno ...

websites/information. *

Torch A torch is a stick with combustible material at one end, which is ignited and used as a light source. Torches have been used throughout history, and are still used in processions, symbolic and religious events, and in juggling entertainment. In ...

was a browser based on Chromium for Windows. It specialises in media downloading and has built-in media features, including a torrent engine, video grabber and sharing button.

Use in app frameworks

Significant portions of the Chromium code are used by some

application framework In computer programming, an application framework consists of a software framework used by software developers to implement the standard structure of application software. Application frameworks became popular with the rise of graphical user int ...

s. Notable examples are

Electron The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no kn ...

, the Chromium Embedded Framework, and the Qt WebEngine. These frameworks have been used to create many apps.

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, Free and open-source software, Internet, Linux Cloud clients Cross-platform free software Free and open-source Android software Free software programmed in C++ Free web browsers Google Chrome Google software MacOS web browsers Portable software Software based on WebKit Software using the BSD license Windows web browsers 2008 software