Google Chrome vs Ungoogled Chromium in 2026

Ungoogled Chromium is Chrome with the company taken out. Same engine, same rendering, same source tree — but Safe Browsing, the host detector, cloud messaging and the rest are disabled, Google binaries are stripped, and requests that would reach Google are rewritten to an address that cannot resolve. Nothing is added in their place. That single decision explains everything else on this page.

What removing Google actually buys

A privacy score of 5 against Chrome's 2, the widest gap of any Chrome comparison in this directory. Chrome is made by an advertising company and ties into an account system by default; Ungoogled Chromium has no telemetry, no account, and no channel back to Google at all. It is also fully open source under a BSD licence, so the removal is auditable rather than promised.

Because it is otherwise stock Chromium, the web works exactly as it does in Chrome. Both score 5 for speed. If a site renders in Chrome it renders here, which is the reason people choose this over a Gecko browser when they want out of Google's orbit.

What it costs, and it is a lot

There is no auto-updater. Keeping current is your job or your package manager's, and for a browser that is a security consideration rather than an inconvenience — an old Chromium carries known, published vulnerabilities. The Chrome Web Store is not wired in, so extensions install by hand or through a community add-on that restores the store. Widevine is gone, so Netflix and other DRM video need files copied from a matching Chrome build, a process that breaks whenever either side updates. Sync went with everything else Google.

That is why it scores 2 for ease against Chrome's 4, and 2 for extensions against 4. None of it is a bug; it is the deliberate consequence of the project's goal.

Which should you choose?

Choose Chrome if you want a browser that updates itself, syncs across your devices, plays DRM video and installs extensions in one click. For almost everyone this is the right answer, and the privacy cost is real but abstract enough that most people accept it knowingly.

Choose Ungoogled Chromium if you specifically want Google removed rather than merely reduced, you are comfortable managing your own updates, and you can live without DRM video. If that goal appeals but the maintenance does not, Helium is built on this exact base and hands most of the convenience back — that is the comparison worth reading next.