Chromium provides the vast majority of source code for Google Chrome, including the user interface, the Blink rendering engine, and the V8 JavaScript engine. Chrome has more features than Chromium. The following list of Chrome features are not present in a default Chromium build. However, some can be enabled or manually added to a Chromium build, which is what many Linux distributions do.
- Auto-update capability
- Integrated Adobe Flash Player
- API keys for some Google services
- The Widevine digital rights management module
- Licensed codecs for the popular H.264 video and AAC audio formats
- Tracking mechanisms for usage and crash reports
While Chrome has the same user interface 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 under the Google Chrome Terms of Service.
Chromium is NOT less stable than Chrome. Disregard poorly written articles likes those that appear in Lifewire. In fact, in recent tests (2019) The Google Voice online application performed better with fewer glitches in Chromium as compared to Chrome.
When Google first introduced Chrome back in 2008, they also released the Chromium source code on which Chrome was based as an open-source project. That open-source code is maintained by the Chromium Project, while Chrome itself is maintained by Google.
Microsoft Edge: When Microsoft announced it was reworking its Edge browser to be based on Chromium, many wondered how different the new Edge would be from Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers. In typical Microsoft fashion, they went into the code and made a mess out of things. Microsoft replaced or turned off more than 50 Chromium services with Edge. Besides the obvious Google hooks, Microsoft took away very useful features like ad blocking, Spellcheck, Speech input and certain Android synchronization options. Then Microsoft loaded the Chromium based Edge browser up with the typical Microsoft bloatware such as enabled by default Bing Search components, Windows Defender SmartScreen, PlayReady DRM support and Microsoft Activity Feed Services to name just a few.
What is most interesting is that after the failures in Microsoft Internet Explorer both in the areas of web standards incompatibility and overall security, Microsoft seems to have given up on their own browser engine and decided to exploit the open source community. Now they can take the work of superior developers and let their own incompetent programming staff "go at it with a butcher knife" to give Windows users something a bit better than MSIE, but still with the feel of Microsoft.
Remember Microsoft Edge is not Chromium, and is only mentioned here since Microsoft decided to use the Chromium open source project as their code base at the core of their browser similar to what Google is doing with Chrome, only in a more heavily modified way. There are other browsers available that are based on the Chromium open source project code base.
Examples of Chromium based web browsers: Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, Brave, Microsoft Edge, Epic Privacy Browser, SlimBrowser, Torch, Comodo Dragon. (there's many more). Opera released a Chromium based version on May 28, 2013 replacing their older Presto rendering engine.