The Chrome brand (logos, trademarks, its "word on the street" recognition - its marketing) are the true meat and potatoes of that web browser. Forking Chromium

The Chrome brand (logos, trademarks, its "word on the street" recognition - its marketing) are the true meat and potatoes of that web browser. Forking Chromium would force them to build a new brand on that scale from scratch. That's not an easy thing to do.