MALE SPEAKER: Hi everyone.
I'm here with Francois again.
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: Hello.
MALE SPEAKER: Hi.
We're here to talk about something related
to the previous talk we did on channels, but different.
What is the difference between Google Chrome,
the browser everybody knows and uses, most of you
probably use it, and Chromium?
Chromium, I think the first thing
we should say about it is that it's an open source project.
That's really what it's meant to be.
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: Yeah.
The open source project Chromium is
composed of three main things.
First is the browser, like you said, the Chromium browser.
Then you have the rendering engine, Blink,
was a fork of WebKit.
And finally you get the operating system, Chromium OS.
MALE SPEAKER: So let's focus on the browser side of things.
So let's set aside the rendering engine
and the OS side of things.
So there's the Chromium browser, and there's the Google Chrome
product which is also a browser.
Let's focus on the differences.
The first one, probably an obvious one
to most people in terms of difference, is the logo.
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: Yeah.
MALE SPEAKER: Different logos.
Different colors.
Googley colors for the Google product, Google Chrome.
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: We get the blue one for Chromium,
and we get the yellow one for Chrome Canary.
MALE SPEAKER: So Canary, I think it's worth
mentioning, but maybe not at this point just yet.
So first difference, logo.
Number one.
Number two, Chromium is an open source project,
so the source code is open source, and yet
at the same time the product that we
ship, which is Google branded, Google Chrome,
itself has a number of pieces that
are not open source, because we've licensed technology.
Another difference would be that there is the bare bones
Chromium version, and then there's
is the Chrome, which is not open source because well--
which contains not open source bits.
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: Yeah.
MALE SPEAKER: So that has consequences
on some of the features that these browsers
are able to offer.
So for example, Chromium will lack a number of things
because we're missing those binary pieces we
have in the product.
Do you want to talk about those?
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: So before mentioning that,
just two things that people will understand.
So there are Chromium builds that are available
on download-chromium.appspot.com.
So basically, every day you get several builds of Chromium
you can download and test.
And then you have the Chromium browser package
that is maintained by distribution maintainers.
So you get one for [INAUDIBLE] for [INAUDIBLE]
for all the Linux dispersion.
You will see there are some differences.
First, like you said, licensing stuff.
You don't have Adobe Flash embedded in Chromium.
MALE SPEAKER: So no Adobe Flash.
No Adobe PDF either?
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: No Adobe PDF either.
Yeah.
It's a plug in.
Basically the Chrome team worked with Adobe
to provide the best security experience for users.
That's in Google Chrome.
That's not in Chromium.
What else?
MALE SPEAKER: Codecs.
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: Codecs obviously.
MALE SPEAKER: Codecs.
Audio and video codecs.
So Chromium, obviously I'm sure, will support things like--
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: VP8, VPN9, Opus, [INAUDIBLE],
all these different source and great codecs
are available in Chromium.
But there are some other great codecs
that you have to pay for.
And Google does it, and they provide it in Google Chrome.
So this is MP3, H264, and AC, I believe.
So if you don't know the raw build of Chromium,
you don't have access to those codecs.
But if you--
MALE SPEAKER: If you access Chromium
through one of the Linux distributions,
maybe the maintainer of that distribution
has done the equivalent work of Google
to fill some of those gaps.
Maybe not all.
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: Not all, but some did.
So it's cool.
MALE SPEAKER: OK.
So flash, PDF, codecs, some differences here.
Maybe another major difference we should mention at this point
is the update mechanism for the bits that you have installed.
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: And that's-- if you need to remember one
thing, that's the thing.
Google Chrome updates whenever it needs.
The push updates you, as a user, to protect you.
If you use Chromium, you rely on the maintainer on yourself.
There is a huge level of-- like there's a huge gap of security
here.
MALE SPEAKER: So that's interesting.
Maybe at this time we should mention Canary.
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: Yeah.
So Chrome updates every six weeks, roughly,
for a stable version.
Then you get Chromium.
You can download a Chromium build everyday if you want.
MALE SPEAKER: Like you do probably.
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: Yeah.
Like I do.
But maybe you don't want to do that.
You don't want to write a base script for it.
You can just use Canary.
And Canary is basically Google Chrome updated every day.
And this is where you should test all the upcoming dev
tools feature for instance.
Or even just a Chrome feature.
MALE SPEAKER: So if you're a developer,
typically you want to make sure it works on the target, which
is Google Chrome, which everybody uses.
But you probably want to test on Canary as well, or maybe even
on Chromium to see what's coming down the line if there are
new features you rely on that are being added or changed.
That's probably a good thing to do, to test on those things.
And they can all be installed in the same machine, right?
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: So one thing, at this time
Chrome Canary is not available in Linux, just Windows and Mac.
MALE SPEAKER: So Windows and Mac.
That's probably worth mentioning.
One last big difference I see is the syncing part,
which is something where it relies on the Google identity
you can have in Google Chrome.
So that means you have access to a number of synchronization
features, the profile, all of that
is actually related to the fact that you
can talk to Google services.
And that, obviously, is part of the Google product, not
the open source project.
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: So yeah, but if you use some builds
maintained by a Linux dispersion, some embed API key,
and you can do that.
MALE SPEAKER: Right.
So that's the beauty of having this open source project.
People can add value.
Google obviously does its own product,
but others can do similar things, or different things,
and innovate in different ways and add their own value
on top of that.
Cool.
So I think we've gone through a number of differences.
I hope it's more clear for you than it
was before you started watching this.
Thanks for watching.
I know it's clearer for me before I
started talking to Francois.
Thanks for watching.
Cheers.
FRANCOIS BEAUFORT: See you guys.