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I mentioned in my first comment that Chromium is the project, and Chrome is a specific (and official) build of Chromium. So you need to understand that Chromiu

I mentioned in my first comment that Chromium is the project, and Chrome is a specific (and official) build of Chromium. So you need to understand that Chromium is the codebase, and Chrome wraps up that code and distributes it (with minor changes) to the public. Now you can still compile Chromium as-is at the trunk, without those small changes, but there's not an official binary as provided by Google for "pure Chromium". That needs to be compiled manually. On Linux, you'd typically use your package manager to keep up to date with the latest builds of Chromium. If you're on Windows, again there's no official binaries but there are sites that auto-build the latest releases. Nightly: https://download-chromium.appspot.com/ https://download-chromium.appspot.com/ Stable: https://chromium.woolyss.com/ https://chromium.woolyss.com/ I'm guessing these do not include an auto-updater. You should also understand that the difference between Chrome and Chromium is not just "tracking" (user metrics and crash reports). Chrome also includes content that could not legally be included in Chromium due to licensing, such as H.264 and AAC codec support. Those are pretty important to the web today. I don't generally recommend running pure builds of Chromium except for developer use. You might consider an alternative like Ungoogled Chromium, though understand they focus more on privacy than security. You will lose features like auto-complete, browser sync, and Google's Safe Browsing service which warns of website malware. For this reason you'd actually be sacrificing security for privacy, which runs contrary to the goal you laid out above. From all the information you've given, I do think a stable or beta branch of Chrome is your best option (though not Canary or dev branches, which are too recent).

WorldDev 4y ago
Thanks again for your answer. I am familiar with the difference between Chrome and Chromium. "that needs to be compiled manually" => I thought this contained chromium binaries : https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-snapshots/index.html https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-sn... "I do think a stable or beta branch of Chrome is your best option" => thanks for the advice. What are your thoughts on the privacy leaks of chrome affecting security? Is that a fair concern? I also read somewhere that some time ago chrome was scanning the hard drive of the host. This seems fairly bad as well, if correct.
- SquareWheel 4y ago
  Privacy and security are often lumped together - usually correctly - but sometimes they are at odds. Security is based on knowing something and privacy is based on not knowing it. This is especially true when two parties are working in a system together (eg. you and me). The more you know about me, the better you can trust me, but the worse my privacy is. I think the phrase "privacy leaks" is an overstatement, but data is collected based on various services that are enabled. You have the option to sign into Chrome to enable browser sync, but this means Google has information on your bookmarks. Is that a leak? Maybe the convenience justifies the sharing of data. Auto-complete will start looking up search keywords as you type them into the omnibox. That means it's sending partial searches to Google just by typing in an address. It's sharing information to return a service. Chrome collects other information on crash reports and usage statistics. See the category "Identifiers in Chrome" in their privacy policy for details on that. It's very human-accessible, as are most of Google's terms of service. https://www.google.com/intl/en_ca/chrome/privacy/ https://www.google.com/intl/en_ca/chrome/privacy/ It's user choice how deep you want to go into the privacy swimming pool. You're generally trading off convenience features in the shallow end, and security features in the deep end (eg. Ungoogle Chromium disabling Safe Browsing). Find the depth you're most comfortable at.
  - WorldDev 4y ago
    That all makes sense. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

WorldDev 4y ago

Thanks again for your answer. I am familiar with the difference between Chrome and Chromium. "that needs to be compiled manually" => I thought this contained chromium binaries : https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-snapshots/index.html https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-sn... "I do think a stable or beta branch of Chrome is your best option" => thanks for the advice. What are your thoughts on the privacy leaks of chrome affecting security? Is that a fair concern? I also read somewhere that some time ago chrome was scanning the hard drive of the host. This seems fairly bad as well, if correct.

SquareWheel 4y ago
Privacy and security are often lumped together - usually correctly - but sometimes they are at odds. Security is based on knowing something and privacy is based on not knowing it. This is especially true when two parties are working in a system together (eg. you and me). The more you know about me, the better you can trust me, but the worse my privacy is. I think the phrase "privacy leaks" is an overstatement, but data is collected based on various services that are enabled. You have the option to sign into Chrome to enable browser sync, but this means Google has information on your bookmarks. Is that a leak? Maybe the convenience justifies the sharing of data. Auto-complete will start looking up search keywords as you type them into the omnibox. That means it's sending partial searches to Google just by typing in an address. It's sharing information to return a service. Chrome collects other information on crash reports and usage statistics. See the category "Identifiers in Chrome" in their privacy policy for details on that. It's very human-accessible, as are most of Google's terms of service. https://www.google.com/intl/en_ca/chrome/privacy/ https://www.google.com/intl/en_ca/chrome/privacy/ It's user choice how deep you want to go into the privacy swimming pool. You're generally trading off convenience features in the shallow end, and security features in the deep end (eg. Ungoogle Chromium disabling Safe Browsing). Find the depth you're most comfortable at.
- WorldDev 4y ago
  That all makes sense. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.