Google Chrome is the most popular browser in the world. It is also one of the most effective surveillance tools ever built. Every URL you visit, every search you type, every form you fill out. Chrome reports back to Google. That is the product. You are not using Chrome. Chrome is using you.

Chromium is the open source project that Chrome is built on. Google takes Chromium, adds its tracking services, bundles in telemetry, connects it to your Google account, and ships it as Chrome. The browser engine is open source. The surveillance layer is not.

Ungoogled Chromium strips all of that out. Every Google service. Every background connection. Every piece of telemetry. What you get is the Chromium engine, the same rendering, the same performance, the same developer tools, without Google attached to it.

What Gets Removed

Ungoogled Chromium is not a different browser with a few settings changed. It applies a series of patches to the Chromium source code during compilation that remove Google integration at the code level. This is not something you can do with browser settings or extensions.

  • Google Safe Browsing: removed. This feature checks every URL you visit against Google’s servers. It is a security feature, but it also means Google knows every page you load. Ungoogled Chromium removes the connection entirely.
  • Google account sync: removed. No sign-in prompts. No bookmark sync through Google. No password sync through Google.
  • Google Cloud Messaging: removed. No push notifications routed through Google’s infrastructure.
  • Google Hotwording: removed. No background audio listening for “OK Google.”
  • Google URL Tracker: removed. Chrome normally pings Google when you type in the address bar. That is gone.
  • Google Host Detector: removed. Chrome makes DNS requests to detect your network configuration. That is gone.
  • Telemetry and usage reporting: removed. No crash reports. No usage statistics. No data sent anywhere.
  • Ad Topics API: removed. Chrome’s built-in ad tracking system does not exist in Ungoogled Chromium.
  • Domain substitution: any remaining references to Google domains in the source code are replaced with non-resolving placeholders. Even if something was missed, it has nowhere to phone home to.

The result is a browser that makes zero background connections to Google. None. When you open Ungoogled Chromium and do nothing, it does nothing. That is how a browser should work.

What You Keep

Everything that makes Chromium a good browser engine is still there.

  • The rendering engine: same Blink engine as Chrome. Pages render the same way. Web apps work the same way.
  • Developer tools: the full Chrome DevTools suite. Inspect, console, network tab, performance profiling. All there.
  • Extension support: Chromium extensions work. You install them differently (more on that below), but they run the same once installed.
  • V8 JavaScript engine: same JavaScript performance as Chrome.
  • The interface: tabs, address bar, settings, bookmarks. It looks and feels like Chrome because it is Chrome, minus the surveillance.

Installing Ungoogled Chromium

macOS

brew install --cask ungoogled-chromium

It appears in your Applications folder like any other app.

Linux

# Flatpak (any distribution)
flatpak install flathub io.github.ungoogled_software.ungoogled_chromium

Also available as native packages for Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Fedora, and others through the project’s binaries page.

Windows

Download the installer from the ungoogled-chromium binaries page. Run the setup. That is it.

Installing Extensions

This is the one area where Ungoogled Chromium requires extra steps. Because all Google service connections are removed, you cannot install extensions directly from the Chrome Web Store by clicking “Add to Chrome.” The browser does not talk to Google, so that button does nothing.

The solution is the chromium-web-store extension. Once installed, it restores the ability to install and update extensions from the Chrome Web Store, without re-enabling any Google tracking.

Setting it up

  1. Open chrome://flags in Ungoogled Chromium
  2. Search for #extension-mime-request-handling
  3. Set it to Always prompt for install
  4. Download the .crx file from the chromium-web-store releases page
  5. You should be prompted to install it. If not, go to chrome://extensions, enable Developer Mode, and drag the .crx file onto the page

After that, the Chrome Web Store works normally. Browse extensions, click install, and they install. The chromium-web-store extension handles updates too.

What You Give Up

There are trade-offs. Being honest about them matters more than pretending they do not exist.

  • No automatic browser updates. Ungoogled Chromium does not auto-update. When a new version is released, you download and install it yourself. On macOS with Homebrew, brew upgrade handles this. On Linux with Flatpak, flatpak update. On Windows, you download the new installer. This is the biggest trade-off. Security patches require you to act.
  • No Google Safe Browsing. You lose the phishing and malware URL checker. For most people who do not click random links in emails, this is fine. If you want URL checking without Google, you can use browser extensions that check against independent blocklists.
  • No DRM content by default. Netflix, Disney+, and other streaming services use Widevine DRM. Ungoogled Chromium does not include it. You can install Widevine separately if you need it, but it does not work out of the box.
  • No Google account sync. If you rely on syncing bookmarks, passwords, and history through your Google account, that is gone. Use KeePassXC for passwords and export/import bookmarks manually.

None of these are dealbreakers. They are choices. You trade convenience for control. That is what every tool on this blog is about.

Why Not Firefox?

Firefox is a legitimate privacy browser and we are not against it. But there are reasons someone might choose Ungoogled Chromium instead.

  • Site compatibility. Some web applications are built for Chromium and do not render correctly in Firefox. If your work depends on Chromium-based rendering, Ungoogled Chromium gives you that without Google.
  • Extension compatibility. Chrome extensions work in Ungoogled Chromium. Firefox uses a different extension format. If you have Chrome extensions you depend on, switching to Firefox means finding alternatives or doing without.
  • Mozilla’s own issues. Mozilla has made controversial decisions about telemetry, advertising partnerships, and data collection. Firefox is better than Chrome on privacy, but it is not perfect either. Ungoogled Chromium is more aggressive about removing tracking than Firefox is.

Use whichever browser serves your needs. The point is: stop using one that surveils you by default.

The Principle

A web browser sees everything you do online. Every page. Every search. Every form field. Every password. If your browser reports that activity to a corporation, you have no privacy on the internet regardless of what other tools you use.

Google Chrome is built to report. That is its business model. Chromium is the engine without the reporting. Ungoogled Chromium makes sure the reporting is actually gone, not just hidden behind a settings toggle that Google can change in the next update.

Your browser should work for you. Not on you.