Chromium, Chrome or derivatives. Elements to make a decision.

Chrome, Chromium or derivatives

As you know, between the Mozilla Foundation and me there is something personal. That except some fork of Firefox already commented by Darkcrizt that I still did not have a chance to test, leaves me as an alternative to Google Chrome or any of the derivatives of the free part of its code. But what is the difference?

Chromium, Chrome and derivatives. Similarities and differences

Let's start by saying that Chromium is completely open source. Any of us can download your source code from GitHub, modify it, and create your own browser. It's what the developers of Brave, Vivaldi and Edge do. According to the terms of the license, it is possible to add benefits under a proprietary code. This is what Google Chrome or Vivaldi do.

Earlier this year the news broke that Google, the main person in charge of the development of Chromium, decided to make things more difficult for its competitors. The company found that some competing Chromium-based browsers offered Chrome-exclusive features by taking advantage of Google's servers. Among them those of synchronizing bookmarks, passwords and data using Google accounts. Also to make calls via the Internet using the browser. Those functions disappeared from Chromium while the derived browsers implemented their own variants.

Regarding the installation of codecs to reproduce content from streaming sites, Google Chrome already has it installed and derived browsers offer the option to do so. In Chromium you have to do it manually.

Installation

Chromium comes in the repositories of the major Linux distributions (In Ubuntu and derivatives except Linux Mint in Snap format) Google Chrome can be downloaded in DEB and RPM formats plus source code. The first two alternatives add a repository that handles updates. Regarding the other options:

  • Vivaldi: DEB and RPM formats
  • Opera: DEB. RPM, SNAP.
  • Brave: DEB, RPM, SNAP.
  • Microsoft Edge: DEB, RPM

Privacy

Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome browsers, despite offering features to protect user anonymity, need to track your information to provide full functionality. Of the derivatives, the most focused on privacy is Brave, which integrates a private mode connected to the Tor network and blocks ads and trackers so that sites do not detect it and restrict performance.

For its part, the Opera browser, in addition to the ad blocker, includes a free integrated VPN in which you just have to activate and select the location.

In the case of Vivaldi, they highlight the superiority of its integrated ad blocker over extensions with the same function. It also has a crawl inhibitor.

Chromium doesn't send data to anyone, but it doesn't offer ad-blocking or tracking features either.

Which to choose?

There are various websites that allow you to compare the performance of the browser from an objective criterion, but beyond that there are personal criteria. My partner Pablinux is an avid user of Vivaldi. For my part, I divide my browsing time between Brave y Microsoft Edge. Brave saves me a ton of ad time, as well as including a built-in BitTorrent client for downloads. However, I was not yet able to understand its complicated QR code synchronization mechanism. To synchronize between devices, I use Edge, which has an efficient mechanism for importing passwords and bookmarks, although managing favorites when you have a large amount is not the most comfortable. Its strength is the integration with Microsoft web services. The built-in translator and built-in pdf reader are also very useful.

Undoubtedly, if you use Google services such as Gmail or Youtube, Google Chrome will give you the best results, while if you are looking for a browser without bloatware, you cannot stop trying Chromium.

I can't say much about OperaI have not used it since it was a Scandinavian capital company (now it is in Chinese hands), however I am very fond of it. It was the lifeline that Linux users had to access sites that only supported Internet Explorer. If you use it and want to tell us what you like, there is the comment form below.


6 comments, leave yours

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  1.   vicfabgar said

    I have used Vivaldi and currently Brave. Both browsers have the plus of privacy and mercilessly block YouTube garbage among others. Vivaldi is customizable, Brave is not. Vivaldi is proprietary, Brave is open source. I finally opted for Brave because when creating web applications with the WebApp Manager and running them, Brave replicates the privacy lock on the WebApp while Vivaldi does not.

    Greetings.

    1.    Diego German Gonzalez said

      Very interesting. I did not know that

  2.   Deepb said

    Ungoogled-chromium test

  3.   Octavio said

    I do very well with Firefox that brings Linux Mint in its repository, I have no complaints, and as a second browser Microsoft's Edge Chromium.

  4.   Liam said

    LOL! ??
    "I was not able to understand its complicated mechanism of synchronization by QR"
    HA HA HA HA HA HA
    Oh my gosh, it's not that difficult. XD

    Is it difficult for you to pick up the phone and scan a QR from the Brave Browser app on Android / iOS, or simply pass the "sync" keys through the Telegram notes and copy and paste?

    1.    Diego German Gonzalez said

      I never got to make it work