ungoogled-chromium

Google Chromium, sans integration with Google

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Quick Overview

Ungoogled-Chromium is a modified version of Google's Chromium web browser that removes Google-specific features and integrations. It aims to enhance privacy and reduce data collection while maintaining the core functionality and performance of Chromium.

Pros

Enhanced privacy and reduced data collection
Removal of Google-specific integrations and features
Maintains core Chromium functionality and performance
Open-source and community-driven development

Cons

May lack some convenient features present in standard Chrome/Chromium
Potential compatibility issues with some websites or extensions
Requires manual updates and maintenance
Smaller user base compared to mainstream browsers

Getting Started

To get started with Ungoogled-Chromium:

Visit the project's GitHub repository: https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium
Go to the "Releases" section to find the latest version for your operating system
Download and install the appropriate package for your system
Launch Ungoogled-Chromium and configure it according to your preferences

Note: Specific installation steps may vary depending on your operating system. Refer to the repository's documentation for detailed instructions.

Competitor Comparisons

ungoogled-chromium

20,504

Google Chromium, sans integration with Google

Pros of ungoogled-chromium

Removes Google-specific integrations and features for enhanced privacy
Disables automatic updates for more control over the browser
Includes additional customization options not available in standard Chromium

Cons of ungoogled-chromium

May lack some convenience features present in standard Chromium
Requires manual updates, which can be time-consuming
Potential compatibility issues with some websites or extensions

Code comparison

Both repositories contain the same codebase for ungoogled-chromium. The main difference lies in the configuration files and build scripts. Here's an example of a patch applied in ungoogled-chromium:

diff --git a/chrome/browser/ui/webui/settings/settings_localized_strings_provider.cc b/chrome/browser/ui/webui/settings/settings_localized_strings_provider.cc
index 1234567..8901234 100644
--- a/chrome/browser/ui/webui/settings/settings_localized_strings_provider.cc
+++ b/chrome/browser/ui/webui/settings/settings_localized_strings_provider.cc
@@ -123,7 +123,7 @@ void AddCommonStrings(content::WebUIDataSource* html_source) {
   html_source->AddString("syncDisconnectConfirmation",
       l10n_util::GetStringUTF16(IDS_SYNC_DISCONNECT_CONFIRMATION));
   html_source->AddString("syncDisconnectTitle",
-      l10n_util::GetStringUTF16(IDS_SYNC_DISCONNECT_TITLE));
+      l10n_util::GetStringUTF16(IDS_SYNC_DISCONNECT_TITLE_UNGOOGLED));

This patch modifies the string used for the sync disconnect title, replacing it with an ungoogled-specific version.

brave-browser

17,709

Brave browser for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows.

Pros of Brave Browser

Built-in ad and tracker blocking, enhancing privacy out of the box
Integrated cryptocurrency wallet and rewards system
More user-friendly and feature-rich for average users

Cons of Brave Browser

Less focus on complete de-Googling compared to Ungoogled Chromium
Includes some proprietary components and telemetry
More complex codebase due to additional features

Code Comparison

Brave Browser (from src/brave/browser/brave_content_browser_client.cc):

void BraveContentBrowserClient::RegisterNonNetworkNavigationLoaderFactories(
    int frame_tree_node_id,
    NonNetworkURLLoaderFactoryMap* factories) {
  ContentBrowserClient::RegisterNonNetworkNavigationLoaderFactories(
      frame_tree_node_id, factories);
  factories->emplace(
      brave_scheme::kBraveUIScheme,
      std::make_unique<BraveContentBrowserClientReconnectingFactory>(
          base::BindRepeating(&CreateBraveUIFactory)));
}

Ungoogled Chromium (from ungoogled-chromium/src/chrome/browser/chrome_content_browser_client.cc):

void ChromeContentBrowserClient::RegisterNonNetworkNavigationLoaderFactories(
    int frame_tree_node_id,
    NonNetworkURLLoaderFactoryMap* factories) {
  ContentBrowserClient::RegisterNonNetworkNavigationLoaderFactories(
      frame_tree_node_id, factories);
  factories->emplace(
      chrome::kChromeUIScheme,
      std::make_unique<ChromeContentBrowserClientReconnectingFactory>(
          base::BindRepeating(&CreateChromeUIFactory)));
}

The code snippets show similar structure but highlight Brave's custom schemes and factories compared to Ungoogled Chromium's more standard Chrome implementation.

bromite

5,836

Bromite is a Chromium fork with ad blocking and privacy enhancements; take back your browser!

Pros of Bromite

Built-in ad blocking and privacy enhancements
Regular updates and active development
Optimized for mobile devices (Android-focused)

Cons of Bromite

Limited to Android platform
Smaller community and fewer contributors compared to Ungoogled Chromium
Less extensive de-Googling compared to Ungoogled Chromium

Code Comparison

Bromite (ad blocking implementation):

public class AdBlocker {
    private static final String AD_HOSTS_FILE = "hosts.txt";
    private static final Set<String> AD_HOSTS = new HashSet<>();

    static {
        loadAdHosts();
    }
}

Ungoogled Chromium (removal of Google-specific code):

#if defined(GOOGLE_CHROME_BUILD)
  // Google-specific code
#else
  // Non-Google code
#endif

Both projects aim to enhance privacy and reduce Google's influence on the Chromium browser. Bromite focuses on mobile devices and includes built-in ad blocking, while Ungoogled Chromium takes a more comprehensive approach to removing Google-specific code and services across all platforms. Bromite offers a more user-friendly experience for Android users, while Ungoogled Chromium provides a more thorough de-Googling process for desktop users.

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README

ungoogled-chromium

A lightweight approach to removing Google web service dependency

Help is welcome! See the docs/contributing.md document for more information.

Objectives

In descending order of significance (i.e. most important objective first):

ungoogled-chromium is Google Chromium, sans dependency on Google web services.
ungoogled-chromium retains the default Chromium experience as closely as possible. Unlike other Chromium forks that have their own visions of a web browser, ungoogled-chromium is essentially a drop-in replacement for Chromium.
ungoogled-chromium features tweaks to enhance privacy, control, and transparency. However, almost all of these features must be manually activated or enabled. For more details, see Feature Overview.

In scenarios where the objectives conflict, the objective of higher significance should take precedence.

Motivation and Philosophy

Without signing in to a Google Account, Chromium does pretty well in terms of security and privacy. However, Chromium still has some dependency on Google web services and binaries. In addition, Google designed Chromium to be easy and intuitive for users, which means they compromise on transparency and control of internal operations.

ungoogled-chromium addresses these issues in the following ways:

Remove all remaining background requests to any web services while building and running the browser
Remove all code specific to Google web services
Remove all uses of pre-made binaries from the source code, and replace them with user-provided alternatives when possible.
Disable features that inhibit control and transparency, and add or modify features that promote them (these changes will almost always require manual activation or enabling).

These features are implemented as configuration flags, patches, and custom scripts. For more details, consult the Design Documentation.

Feature Overview

This section overviews the features of ungoogled-chromium. For more detailed information, it is best to consult the source code.

Contents of this section:

Key Features
Enhancing Features
Borrowed Features
Supported Platforms and Distributions

Key Features

These are the core features introduced by ungoogled-chromium.

Disable functionality specific to Google domains (e.g. Google Host Detector, Google URL Tracker, Google Cloud Messaging, Google Hotwording, etc.)
- This includes disabling Safe Browsing. Consult the FAQ for the rationale.
Block internal requests to Google at runtime. This feature is a fail-safe measure for the above, in case Google changes or introduces new components that our patches do not disable. This feature is implemented by replacing many Google web domains in the source code with non-existent alternatives ending in qjz9zk (known as domain substitution; see docs/design.md for details), then modifying Chromium to block its own requests with such domains. In other words, no connections are attempted to the qjz9zk domain.
Strip binaries from the source code (known as binary pruning; see docs/design.md for details)

Enhancing Features

These are the non-essential features introduced by ungoogled-chromium.

Add many new command-line switches and chrome://flags entries to configure new features (which are disabled by default). See docs/flags.md for the exhaustive list.
Add Suggestions URL text field in the search engine editor (chrome://settings/searchEngines) for customizing search engine suggestions.
Add more URL schemes allowed to save page schemes.
Add Omnibox search provider "No Search" to allow disabling of searching
Add a custom cross-platform build configuration and packaging wrapper for Chromium. It currently supports many Linux distributions, macOS, and Windows. (See docs/design.md for details on the system.)
Force all pop-ups into tabs
Disable automatic formatting of URLs in Omnibox (e.g. stripping http://, hiding certain parameters)
Disable intranet redirect detector (extraneous DNS requests)
- This breaks captive portal detection, but captive portals still work.
(Iridium Browser feature change) Prevent URLs with the trk: scheme from connecting to the Internet
- Also prevents any URLs with the top-level domain qjz9zk (as used in domain substitution) from attempting a connection.
(Windows-specific) Do not set the Zone Identifier on downloaded files

Borrowed Features

In addition to the features introduced by ungoogled-chromium, ungoogled-chromium selectively borrows many features from the following projects (in approximate order of significance):

Supported Platforms and Distributions

See docs/platforms.md for a list of supported platforms.

Other platforms are discussed and tracked in this repository's Issue Tracker. Learn more about using the Issue Tracker under the section Contributing, Reporting, Contacting.

Downloads

Automated or maintained builds

ungoogled-chromium is available in the following software repositories:

Arch: Available in AUR & OBS, see instructions in ungoogled-chromium-archlinux
Debian & Ubuntu: Available in OBS, find your distribution specific instructions in the Installing section
Fedora: Available in COPR as wojnilowicz/ungoogled-chromium. Also available in RPM Fusion as chromium-browser-privacy (outdated).
Gentoo: Available in ::pf4public overlay as ungoogled-chromium and ungoogled-chromium-bin ebuilds
OpenMandriva includes ungoogled-chromium as its main browser. The chromium package includes all ungoogling patches.
macOS: Available in Homebrew as eloston-chromium. Just run brew install --cask eloston-chromium. Chromium will appear in your /Applications directory.

If your GNU/Linux distribution is not listed, there are distro-independent builds available via the following package managers:

Flatpak: Available in the Flathub repo as io.github.ungoogled_software.ungoogled_chromium
GNU Guix: Available as ungoogled-chromium
NixOS/nixpkgs: Available as ungoogled-chromium

Third-party binaries

If your operating system is not listed above, you can also try to Download binaries from here

NOTE: These binaries are provided by anyone who are willing to build and submit them. Because these binaries are not necessarily reproducible, authenticity cannot be guaranteed; In other words, there is always a non-zero probability that these binaries may have been tampered with. In the unlikely event that this has happened to you, please report it in a new issue.

These binaries are known as contributor binaries.

Source Code

This repository only contains the common code for all platforms; it does not contain all the configuration and scripts necessary to build ungoogled-chromium. Most users will want to use platform-specific repos, where all the remaining configuration and scripts are provided for specific platforms:

Find the repo for a specific platform here.

If you wish to include ungoogled-chromium code in your own build process, consider using the tags in this repo. These tags follow the format {chromium_version}-{revision} where

chromium_version is the version of Chromium used in x.x.x.x format, and
revision is a number indicating the version of ungoogled-chromium for the corresponding Chromium version.

Additionally, most platform-specific repos extend their tag scheme upon this one.

Building the source code: See docs/building.md

Mirrors

List of mirrors:

Codeberg: main repo and ungoogled-software

FAQ

See the frequently-asked questions (FAQ) on the Wiki

Building Instructions

See docs/building.md

Design Documentation

See docs/design.md

Contributing, Reporting, Contacting

For reporting and contacting, see SUPPORT.md
If you're willing to help, check out the Issue Tracker and especially issues, which need help
For contributing (e.g. how to help, submitting changes, criteria for new features), see docs/contributing.md
If you have some small contributions that don't fit our criteria, consider adding them to ungoogled-software/contrib or our Wiki instead.

Credits

The Chromium Project
Inox patchset
Debian
Bromite
Iridium Browser
The users for testing and debugging, contributing code, providing feedback, or simply using ungoogled-chromium in some capacity.

Related Projects

List of known projects that fork or use changes from ungoogled-chromium:

Bromite (Borrows some patches. Features builds for Android)
ppc64le fork (Fork with changes to build for ppc64le CPUs)

License

BSD-3-clause. See LICENSE

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