Chromium
The open source browser Google Chrome is built from. Almost the same experience, without the Google extras.
Our verdict
Chromium is the browser underneath Chrome, and for a home user the two feel close to identical. Tabs, bookmarks, settings and extensions all work the way they do on Windows, and pages that only ever got tested in Chrome behave properly.
What is missing is the Google layer. Depending on which copy you install you may not be able to sign in and sync bookmarks, and a few builds leave out the component that paid video services require. If either of those matters, install Google Chrome itself instead, which is also available for Linux.
For everything else it is a sensible default second browser to keep alongside Firefox for the occasional site that misbehaves.
What's good
- Looks and behaves like Chrome, so nothing has to be relearned
- Available in the app store on nearly every Linux system
- Open source, with no Google sign-in or usage reporting built in
- Runs the same extensions from the Chrome Web Store
What to know first
- Sign-in and sync with a Google account is not always available
- Some paid streaming services need an extra playback component that is left out of a few builds
- The Flathub listing is community maintained rather than official
- Updates arrive through whoever built your copy, so timing varies a little between systems
The details
- Cost
- Free
- Open source
- Yes (BSD-3-Clause)
- How you install it
- App store (Flatpak), .deb installer, App store (Snap), Built-in app store
Windows apps it can replace
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