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Chromium (web browser)

Open-source web browser project From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chromium (web browser)
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Chromium is a free and open-source web browser project primarily developed and maintained by Google.[3] It serves as the foundation for a number of browsers, including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Samsung Internet, and Opera. The codebase is also used in several application frameworks.

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Comparison with Google Chrome

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Chromium serves as the upstream project for Google Chrome, providing the vast majority of its source code. However, there are several differences between the two in terms of licensing, features and branding.

Licensing

Chromium's source code is released under free and open-source software licenses. The portion authored by Google is primarily licensed under the 3-clause BSD license.[8] Third-party components may use other licenses, such as the MIT License, LGPL, Ms-PL, and a tri-license under the Mozilla Public License, GPL, and LGPL.[9] These licenses permit third parties to build and distribute the browser. As a result, many Linux distributions, as well as FreeBSD and OpenBSD, include Chromium builds.[10]

In contrast, Google Chrome includes proprietary features and branding. It is distributed as freeware under the Google Chrome Terms of Service and is not open source.[11]

Features

Chrome includes several features not present in Chromium, such as:[10]

Branding

The names also reflect different intentions. Google named its browser "Chrome" to emphasize a minimal interface and draw attention to web content rather than browser controls.[13][14] The open-source project was later named "Chromium" after the chromium metal used in chrome plating.[1]

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Development

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Chromium is an open-source web browser project led by Google, with a codebase of over 32 million source lines of code (excluding comments and blank lines).[4] Since the project began, most of the development work has been done by Google employees, but many other companies such as Microsoft, Intel, Samsung, Opera, and Brave have also contributed.[3][15] However, Google retains full control over the project.[16] Google refers to this project and its offshoot ChromiumOS collectively as "the Chromium projects".[2]

One of Chromium's key innovations is its design as a multi-process browser.[17][18] This means it separates different tabs and functions into separate processes, which improves speed and security but uses more memory.[19][20] Later, this design was improved to isolate websites even more strictly for added security.[19]

Chromium’s user interface was created to be simple and minimalistic, focusing on ease of use.[18][21][22]

The browser engine was originally based on Apple's WebKit,[23] but Google later developed its own engine called Blink to better support its multi-process architecture.[23][24]

Most of Chromium’s code is written in C++, including its core components like the Blink engine, the JavaScript engine (V8), network protocols, caching, and the main parts of the user interface.[25] The rest of the interface, called the WebUI, uses web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (often converted from TypeScript).[25][5] Various tests for web standards are also written in these languages plus XML.[6][4]

Third-party libraries provide important functions like databases and media codecs.[26] These are mostly written in C, C++, or recently, Rust.[4][27][28] For mobile platforms, Chromium uses additional languages: Java and Kotlin for Android, and Objective-C and Swift for iOS.[4][5]

The build system, which compiles and prepares the browser software, is mainly written in Python and uses Google’s GN tool for configuration.[4][29]

Chromium's development is publicly tracked through an open bug system, where contributors use their email addresses.[30] The project also runs automated continuous integration systems that builds and test the browser multiple times a day to catch problems early.[31]

Version numbers follow a four-part system (major.minor.build.patch) based on Google Chrome's development cycle, with new development branches every six to seven weeks.[32][33]

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History

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2008 to 2010

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An alpha build of Chromium 3 for Linux

Google Chrome debuted in September 2008, and along with its release, the Chromium source code was also made available, allowing third parties to build their own browsers from it.[1][34][35]

Version 3 was the first alpha release for Linux, and included native theming using the GTK+ toolkit to better integrate with the GNOME desktop environment.[36][37][38][39] It also introduced improved JavaScript engine performance and user-selectable themes.[40]

Version 6 focused on minimalism and usability, consolidating UI elements and modifying defaults such as hiding the home button and bookmark bar. Additional features included an integrated PDF reader, support for WebM and VP8 video formats, and enhancements to the URL bar.[41][42][43]

Version 7 introduced performance improvements, including early implementation of hardware acceleration.[44][45][46]

Version 8 focused on cloud and ChromeOS integration, introducing background web application support, remote desktop capabilities, and cloud printing.[46]

Version 9 added features such as a phishing detection mechanism in the URL bar, sandboxing for the Adobe Flash plug-in, support for WebGL, and access to the newly launched Chrome Web Store.[47][48][49]

2011

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Chromium logo introduced in 2011[50]

In February 2011, Google explored user interface redesign concepts, including a proposal to consolidate tabs, navigation buttons, menus, and the address bar into a single row. The objective was to maximize screen space, although the proposal raised concerns about usability and visibility of URLs. The idea was ultimately shelved by August due to concerns over usability.[51][52]

In March, Google outlined new development priorities, including reducing the size of the Chromium executable, enhancing the integration of web applications and plug-ins, cloud features, and support for touchscreen interfaces.[53][54] A multi-profile feature was also added, allowing users to manage multiple accounts within a single session. Additional improvements included malware detection and support for hardware-accelerated CSS transforms.[55][56]

Efforts to reduce the software’s overall file size became visible by May, with early work targeting components such as WebKit, the image resizer, and the Android build system.[57] A more compact UI for mobile was also introduced.[58][59]

Other notable changes in 2011 included GPU acceleration for all pages, support for the Web Audio API, and the Google Native Client (NaCl), which enables secure execution of platform-neutral native code within the browser.[60][61] Google's Skia graphics library was also made available for all Chromium versions.[62][63]

Since 2012

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The Chromium Material Icon used until 2022

The sync service added for Google Chrome in 2012 could also be used by Chromium builds.[64][65] The same year, a new API for high-quality video and audio communication was added, enabling web applications to access the user's webcam and microphone after asking permission to do so.[66][67] Then GPU accelerated video decoding for Windows and support for the QUIC protocol were added.[68][69]

In 2013, Chromium's modified WebKit rendering engine was officially forked as the Blink engine.[23][24]

Other changes in 2013 were the ability to reset user profiles and new browser extension APIs.[70] Tab indicators for audio and webcam usage were also added, as was automatic blocking of files detected as malware.[71]

Version 67 added the security benefit of per-process website isolation.[19] Then version 69 introduced a new browser theme, as part of the tenth anniversary of Google Chrome.[72] The same year, new measures were added to curtail abusive advertising.[73]

Since 2021, the Google Chrome sync service can no longer be used by Chromium builds.[74][12] Also, starting with version 89, only Intel and AMD processors with the SSE3 instruction set or later are supported.[75]

Starting with version 110, only Windows 10 and later are supported for Windows users.[76]

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Browsers based on Chromium

In addition to Google Chrome, many other actively developed browsers are based on the Chromium code. Most of these are proprietary, like Chrome, but some remain free and open-source software, like Chromium.[77][78][79][80]

Proprietary

Free and open-source

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Use in app frameworks

These notable app frameworks embed a Chromium browser as the functional core of custom apps:

The two prominent Chromium-based WebView components also provide a similar way to make apps:

With either approach, the custom app is implemented with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other web technologies. Moreover, the app can be readily deployed on the operating systems supported by Chromium. Since the 2010s, many apps have been created this way. (Two examples are Spotify and Slack.)[84][85]

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References

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