Chromium open-source Chrome

The first web browser was invented in 1990 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Since then web browsers have ranged in features from text-based user interfaces with just support for HTML to rich user interfaces supporting a wide variety of file formats and protocols.

As of October, 2017 Google Chrome is the most popular web browser out there. You can download it on you GNU distribution without a problem. However, if you are trying to have a computer with only free software Chrome is not the way to go. For the free software fan, the is Chromium.

Chromium is an open-source browser project that forms the basis for the Chrome web browser. When Google first gave us Chrome back in 2008, they also released the Chromium source code on which Chrome was based as an open-source project. So that means that the open-source code is maintained by a group calling itself the Chromium Project, while Chrome itself is maintained by Google.

While Chrome is based on Chromium, Google adds a number of closed-source bits to their Chrome browser that Chromium lacks. Specifically, Google takes Chromium and then adds AAC, H.264, MP3, and Adobe Flash (PPAPI)support. By default, Chromium only supports Vorbis, Theora and WebM formats for the HTML5 audio and video tags.

Chromium automatically translates pages into a language you understand for your convenience. It uses a multiprocess architecture, which protects you from having a bad Web page or application take your browser down. Every tab, window, and plug-in runs in its own environment so one faulty site won't affect anything else that you have open. This approach will consume more RAM which is one of its biggest flaws is how much of your computer’s RAM it eats up.

If you’re fully immersed in the Google ecosystem, using Chromium makes perfect sense. It ties in with your Google account, allowing you to sync settings and bookmarks between computers as it is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux distributions.