Introducing Chromium/Google Chrome
Chromium, what's that?
Chromium is an open source web browser compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac OS. This project is mainly under the BSD license which allows the use of partial or complete source of chromium. This browser has illustrated for the first time in 2008, with a positive conclusion from the testers,
Each night, the developers involved in the "chromium" project publish a new version (with admittedly little change). You can follow the latest "builds" from
this page
Learn more from the official website:
Official site of chromium
Google Chrome
Google Chrome, is a user friendly version of
Chromium, by Google. As the license for the source codes are subject BSD (chromium can be reused), Google took the opportunity to put his name before that of the product and re-use existing work.
Google Chrome re-uses older versions of chromium.
Official website of Google Chrome
Differences between Google Chrome and Chromium
| Google Chrome | Chromium |
|---|
| Logo | Green, Yellow and Red | Shades of blue |
|---|
| Crash Report | Yes | No |
|---|
| Automatic Update | Yes | No |
|---|
| User's Datas | Yes | No |
|---|
| Profile | ~/.config/google-chrome | ~/.config/chromium |
|---|
| Cache | ~/.cache/google-chrome | ~/.cache/chromium |
|---|
|
The speed factor
Chromium and Google Chrome are best illustrated, for their speed: the program launches instantly and pages load very quickly.
Here are the results of a test published by DailyTech:
Celtic Kane's JS Benchmark| Rank | Browser | Score |
|---|
| 1 | Chrome 4 | 432 ± 24 |
|---|
| 2 | Safari 4 | 297 ± 3 |
|---|
| 3 | Opera 10.5 alpha | 252 ± 5 |
|---|
| 4 | Firefox 3.6b5 | 157 ± 4 |
|---|
| 5 | Internet-explorer IE8 | 67 ± 3 |
|---|
|
PeaceKeeper| Rank | Browser | Score |
|---|
| 1 | Chrome 4 | 3984 point |
|---|
| 2 | Opera 10.5 alpha | 3597 points |
|---|
| 3 | Safari 4 | 3570 points |
|---|
| 4 | Firefox 3.6b5 | 2905 points |
|---|
| 5 | IE8 | 1006 points |
|---|
|
Sunspider| Rank | Browser | Score |
|---|
| 1 | Opera 10.5 alpha | 470.2ms +/- 5.1% |
|---|
| 2 | Chrome 4 | 503.8ms +/- 3.9% |
|---|
| 3 | Safari 4 | 622.8ms +/- 12.6% |
|---|
| 4 | Firefox 3.6b5 | 883.2ms +/- 1.2% |
|---|
| 5 | IE8 | 4539.0ms +/- 0.6% |
|---|
|
The interface
Chromium is quite innovative and completely redefines the browsing habits.
Here is the interface of google chrome:
The Omnibar is one of the most ingenious innovations, its goal is to combine the address bar and search bar.
Not to mention the download manager and many other surprises.
In fact, the interface is minimalist and the browser does only one thing "browsing", and it performs well and quickly.
Stability
Chromium is probably one of the most stable browser. In fact Google Chrome generates a process for each tab, so when a tab crashes, the other ones are still working.
However Google Chrome is more stable than Chromium as it is less dynamic, as stated earlier updates for Chromium are published daily and new stuff often come with new bugs.
Technical aspects
Chromium is free software, so you can retrieve the
source code and modify it and distribute it if you want. *
Download Linkl
- Chrome uses the WebKit rendering engine, just like Safari.
- Chrome creates a process per task.
Extension and theme
To compete with
Internet Explorer and Firefox, Chromium handles
extensions and greasmonkey scripts(which has the same extension Firefox). The collection of
extensions is consistent(4356 extensions available on the official website), in addition to countless greasmonkey scripts are available on
sur UserScripts.org.
- Note that the extensions are less well integrated and less complete than under Firefox.
- Google Chrome also runs the themes.
- You can access the gallery here.
Note that
