ungoogled-chromium, the "official" chromium without Google's shackles

Although many Linux users opted for Firefox, the most used web browser in the world is Chrome. Developed by Google, it is not the best option if we are interested in privacy, but with the same engine we have other options such as Brave, Opera or DotBrowser, a younger browser that uses the Chromium engine, but has decided to get as far away from the browser's company as possible. There is another option with the same philosophy, a ungoogled-chromium which looks even more like the official Chromium.

Unlike Dot Browser, which has its own image and options like the splash screen, ungoogled-chromium has the same image as the original Chromium, that Ubuntu users can no longer install without tricks if not from their snap package (since last week, is also on Flathub). What its developer has done is take the code and eliminate everything he could from Google, as we can read in your GitHub page.

Characteristics of ungoogled-chromium

• It is a Chromium that does not depend on Google web services.
• Keep the Chromium experience as long as possible.
• Changes to improve privacy, control and transparency. Many of those options can be reactivated.
• Removed all remaining background requests to any web service while creating and running the browser, all code specific to Google web services, and all uses of pre-built source code binaries and replaces them with user-supplied alternatives when may be possible.
• Features that inhibit control and transparency have been disabled, and features that promote them can be added or modified (these changes will almost always require manual activation or enablement).
• Block requests from Google.
• Add the Suggestions URL text field in the search engine editor (chrome: // settings / searchEngines) to customize the search engine suggestions.
• Added more URL schemes allowed to save page schemes.
• Add the Omnibox search provider "No search" to allow search disable.
• Add a custom cross-platform build configuration and packaging wrapper for Chromium. It is currently compatible with many Linux, macOS, and Windows distributions.
• Force all pop-ups into tabs.
• Disable automatic URL formatting in Omnibox (for example, remove http: // or hide certain parameters).
• Disables the intranet redirect detector (strange DNS requests). This breaks captive portal detection, but captive portals still work.
• (Iridium browser role change) Prevents URLs with the trk: scheme from connecting to the Internet.
• It also prevents any URL with the top-level domain qjz9zk (as used in domain substitution) from attempting a connection.
• (Iridium and Inox Characteristics Change) Prevents IPv6 address ping when IPv6 availability is detected. See the –set-ipv6-probe-false flag above to adjust the behavior.
• (Windows specific) Does not set the zone identifier on downloaded files.

Available for Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android

ungoogled-chromium is available for desktop and Android systems, although in Google's mobile operating system it is necessary to download it from F-Droid. Linux users can install it in different ways, the most general being the Flatpak package, available at this link by Flathub. Furthermore, it can also be installed in these ways:

• Arch Linux: Appears in AUR as ungoogled-chromium.
• Debian / Ubuntu: available in Viewer discretion, from where we can read the instructions to install it in our distribution.
• Fedora: available in RPMFusion like chromium-browser-privacy.
• Gentoo: available in :: pf4public as ungoogled-chromium.

Regarding the available version, right now we can download ungoogled-chromium 87, which is the version based on the latest Chromium release. In all likelihood, the browser will be updated shortly after official releases, so we can enjoy the most faithful Chromium experience by "cheating" on Google and thus protecting our privacy. If someone thinks that it is a small project and does not trust it in case they abandon it in the near future, you know, Chromium is available in many other browsers, including the Chrome that we try to escape in this post.