UnGoogled Chromium available for free on GitHub & Softpedia

Oct 16, 2016 22:30 GMT  ·  By

UnGoogled Chromium is a custom version of the Chromium browser that doesn't include any type of Google services or features.

UnGoogled Chromium is not a Google Chrome version, but a version of Chromium, the open-source browser which is at the base of Chrome, Vivaldi, and Opera.

Chromium is not as Google-free as many people think

While Chromium is an open-source project, it is a de-facto Google affair, with most contributors being Google engineers. As such, many of Chromium's features include many Google-specific services and aren't that agnostic as most people think.

For example, Chromium comes pre-configured to use Google as the default search engine, uses Google's Safe Browsing API to scan every URL you visit, and loads a bunch of Google binaries to power all sorts of internal services.

This means that there is a lot of user data still being sent to Google's servers, despite using an open-source project, and not Chrome.

Developer exorcises Google from Chromium

A developer named Eloston has set out to fix this, and has forked the Chromium source code so he can remove any traces of Google from the Chromium source code.

In a GitHub README, he says he disabled the Safe Browsing API, WebRTC, the Omnibox address bar search feature, and any functionality specific to Google domains, such as Google Host Detector, Google URL Tracker, Google Cloud Messaging, Google Hotwording, and others.

He also removed all closed-source binaries Google was loading into Chromium and made other stylistic changes, such as automatic URL formatting (UnGoogled Chromium does not hide https:// in the address bar anymore).

Additionally, UnGoogled Chromium also forces popups to open into tabs and allows users to save data from more types of URL schemes (categories).

Below is a photo gallery of UnGoogled Chromium. As you can see, it looks just like any other Chromium-based browser. UnGoogled Chromium is available for Ubuntu, Debian, Mac, and Windows.

UnGoogled Chromium browser
UnGoogled Chromium browser

UnGoogled Chromium (7 Images)

UnGoogled Chromium browser
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