====== Chromium's Flaws ======

As free software activists, we all enjoy using the latest and greatest in free software, but we need to make sure that **the software we are using really does respect our freedom**. Many users have expressed to us **their desire to run Chromium web browser**, since it appears to be fully free software, **but it still fails in several ways**.

**Chromium, by default**, <color #B90B0B/#FFDDDD>has a number of issues</color> that are of concern for free software users - **even if all the source code is licensed properly**.

===== What are the issues? =====

==== Queries to Google ====

**By default, Chromium source code still has many lines of code that makes direct internet connections to Google**.
When building the software unpatched, much of the users browsing experience is under the control of Google's online web services.
As mentioned in the article [[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html|Who does that server really serve?]], free and libre software is only free when you are in control and should not be depending on third-parties. Some work has already been done to free Chromium from this problem, including the removal of its so-called "speech assistant".

==== Pre-built Binaries ====

**By default, Chromium** <color #B90B0B/#FFDDDD>still includes some pre-built binaries</color> to aid in faster compiling. In order to have fully free software, **it is required that all software can be built from source**.

==== DRM and Proprietary Codecs ====

**Chromium supports** the use of <color #B90B0B/#FFDDDD>Widevine DRM, Adobe Pepper Flash, and third-party codecs which are non-free</color>. **Building the software is therefore complicated and users must ensure that these are removed from the source code** prior to compiling in order to be called free software. **To disable them is not enough**. It is required to **remove (support and references about it) from the source** as per the [[https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.en.html|FSDG]].

==== Privacy problems ====

**Users should always have full control over their private information**. Chromium has a [[https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/ImportantGoogleChromeBugs|number of reported privacy concerns which made it ineligible for use with Tor]].
Issues include **outstanding proxy bugs** which **leak an user's IP address**, fingerprinting issues that **leak the computers hostname and hardware**, and **timing issues that enable timing attacks** even in the browser's "Incognitio" mode. **Free software users should be aware of these issues**.


===== The Bigger Picture =====

Chromium is also being used as an **embedded framework in various projects**.

Users should be aware that **Qt WebEngine is based on Chromium and therefore contains many of the same flaws**. [[https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtwebengine-features.html#audio-and-video-codecs|Proprietary codecs and other anti-features]] **must be removed at compile time** to ensure user's freedom is respected. Due to Qt being a primary component of KDE and many applications, ensuring it is compiled correctly and **removing non-free software** is of even greater importance to the [[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-intro.en.html|Free Software Movement]].

For freedom's sake, **free software projects should take care about all kinds of freedom issues** when deciding what components to depend on.

**Chromium will always stay a pure corporate project** and therefore funded aside also controlled by Google / Alphabet. Therefore the software itself cannot be called free and libre in any given way when looking over the noted points and the background of the project itself.
===== Licensing =====

This is Free work, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either:

The [[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/|Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License]] as published by Creative Commons; either version 4.0, or (at your option) any later version, or

The [[https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html|GNU Free Documentation License]] as published by the Free Software; either version 1.3, or (at your option) any later version; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.