Chromium vs Chrome web browsers

Everyone knows about Google's web browser, Chrome, but there is another web browser called Chromium. It has a similar name and it even looks similar and works in a similar way. What is the difference between Chrome and Chromium?

It is easy to see why people get confused between the two browsers because they are both basically the same. I've heard Windows users talk about using Chromium for web browsing when I'm almost certain they are not using Chromium, but have Google Chrome instead. When using Linux you might go to the package manager and search for Chrome to install it and instead it lists Chromium. Ubuntu software Centre does this. What should you do? Let's look at the differences.

Chromium is a project to create an open source web browser that is fast, reliable, secure and uses the latest web standards.

Google takes the Chromium web browser, customises it slightly and calls it Chrome. So Chrome is Chromium with a few extra features and some modified settings. You can find a detailed description of the differences between the two browsers here, but to save you the trouble, here are the main points.

Google adds Flash to Chrome. This is so that users don't have to go and find the Flash plugin and install it or keep installing updates every time it changes. Flash is used for a lot of online video content (although this is changing) and a few other things. Google adds support for PDF files so that you can view them in the browser without having to find and install some other utility like Adobe Reader/Acrobat. Google adds support for AAC, MP3, Vorbis and Theora audio and video file formats. Google tests Chrome more thoroughly than Chromium too. There are some other minor differences, but not that you will notice.

I can't see any point in running Chromium on Windows or the Mac, but if you want to, go to download-chromium.appspot.com to download it. There is a case for using it in Linux distros where you want everything you use to be open source though. The plugins Google adds are not open source, but they make the browser much more fun. Chrome is available from www.google.com/chrome of course.