(2 of 3) Open Source Software Review and Comparison: Chromium Browser

            Up for review is the open source Chromium browser. Not to be confused with the widely popular proprietary freeware Google Chrome, although the Chrome browser does use Chromium as a starting point and then builds upon it from there (Hoffman, 2018). Personally, for me it is more about what Chromium doesn’t have but even with that being the case, Chromium is open source and modifiable meaning, if you know how to program then you would more than likely be able to customize Chromium to your needs. In essence, Chrome has all the things that Chromium is missing. However, Chromium does support syncing across all of your devices and the built-in tools for developers are a great addition (Soffar, 2018). Extensions can be installed without the need to relaunch the browser as well as having the ability to use extensions from a third party (Soffar, 2018). Chromium is also compatible with HTML5. I feel that Chromium is good for the more technically adept, people that like to either customize or even build your own browser, or if you prefer Linux distro’s to Windows being as Chromium is the default browser for many Linux distro’s (Soffar, 2018), and in my experience many Linux users prefer to have a more granular control over their systems.

Comparison to Chrome

            I believe first and foremost, security should be a priority and Chromium does not have automatic updating, whereas Chrome does (Soffar, 2018) and when it comes to security issues and updates, this is something that should be done on a daily basis. Chromium is also missing Adobe Flash Player, this is something you would have to manually download and install and once again you would also have to manually check for updates and keep it updated (Keizer, 2018). Chromium cannot play Netflix (Keiser, 2018) for example and does not support several file types or audio/video codecs such as mp3, AAC and H.264 (Soffar, 2018) to name a few. Chromium also does not have a built-in reader to view PDF files, but Chrome can pretty much play anything and view pdf’s in the browser (Soffar, 2018). So, the best way I can sum up most of the differences is that with Chromium you will have to install anything you need and manually check and update everything you installed as well as the browser itself and Chrome comes with everything and keeps everything updated.

References

Hoffman, C. (2018). What’s the difference between Chromium and Chrome? Retrieved from https://www.howtogeek.com/202825/what%E2%80%99s-the-difference-between-chromium-and-chrome/

Keiser, G. (2018). Google’s Chromium browser explained. Retrieved from https://www.computerworld.com/article/3261009/web-browsers/googles-chromium-browser-explained.html

Soffar, H. (2018). Chromium browser, review, uses, features, advantages and disadvantages. Retrieved from https://www.online-sciences.com/computer/chromium-browser-review-uses-features-advantages-and-disadvantages/