While Chrome and Chromium sound very similar, the two browsers or browser projects show clear differences. The topic can be particularly exciting if you are thinking about switching to a different browser.
Differences between Google Chrome and Chromium
While Google Chrome is very popular as a browser, Chromium is less well known. Chromium is an open source project. This project can be used as a browser under various operating systems such as Windows, Linux, macOS or Android - but not under iOS. However, Chromium is only intended for developers.
In other words, Chromium is not actually a "real" browser, just a framework on which other browsers can be built. These include Chrome, Opera and, for some time now, Microsoft Edge. But not (only) Google is working on Chromium, but also various other developers. A total of around 50 companies and 1,000 individual developers are involved in the project..
Google Chrome, on the other hand, is a complete browser based on the Chromium open source system. Chrome is intended for the end user and is optimally adapted to this function. In contrast to the related Chromium, Chrome is not open source. In order to function as an actual browser, some features have been added to Chrome. The following components are in Chrome, but not in the Chromium framework:
- Adobe Flash
- Automatic updates
- Codecs such as AAC, H.264 and MP3 are supported
- Extensions are automatically deactivated if they are not available in the Chrome web store
- Error reports can be sent to the browser operator (Google)
- Trademarks (i.e. Google Name and Google Logo)
- RLZ identifier
