According to its official website, Chromium is an open-source browser project developed by Google that aims to “build a faster, safer, and more stable way for users to experience the web.” It first went online in September of 2008.
The browser is an effort by Google to improve Google Chrome with research from the Chromium Project continuously. The fact that it is open-source means that anyone can download it, modify it, and improve it legally without any prohibitions.
Chromium is very easy to download, and there are instructions to run it and later contribute modified code to Google. There is also a very through developer’s guide for Android, which is also a part of the project.
The importance of Chromium and its current development state
Chromium is an entirely different browser than Google Chrome, but it is not independent. All of its releases are always in ‘beta,’ so to speak. The official Chromium version is the latest Google Chrome release.
Google’s intention when the company released Chromium was to attempt to get more third-party developers to tap and improve upon their technologies. Users are always at the receiving end of technology, and user developing can detect flaws companies fail to see.
Google also intended for Chromium to be a way for Linux and Mac users to have access to a better version of Chrome. Chromium currently appears as the default browser in many Linux-based systems. The company still looks closely at the Chromium Project and continuously updates its releases and attempts to give developers more tools.
Differences between Chromium and Chrome
Chromium is not only intended for developers. In fact, regular users can download it as their web browser of choice. Doing so has its pros and cons, the first being the loss of the auto-update feature in Chromium, which forces users to download and install newer versions manually.
Some users concerned with security have noted that Chromium gives them a safer browsing space because the browser is not directly controlled by Google, like Chrome. But Google will still get a user’s average data if they access their products through Chromium.
How to get Chromium on your computer
Chromium supports, as stated above, downloads for Linux, Mac, Android, and iOS. Users can download the browser without any extra requirement other than switching their system language to English (if they wish to develop the code).
After checking that their computer can safely run Chromium and that there are no further impediments for developing or usage, a simple download of the depot_tools_package gives the user access to all of its latest features.
Source: Chromium Project