Does anyone know what the main differences are between Chromium and Chrome?

I was on Chrome Dev 4.0.223.11 until today, and though it was a full install, it hadn't updated for a while. Maybe there were no updates over the past few days? Anyway, I went to the Chromium Dev page and got version 4.0.231.0, which has some fixes which have cheered me up (See YAY! thread in this forum).

One thing which annoyed me with Chrome was that when I was logged-in to Gmail, Chrome threw up a message asking if I wanted to sync things. This can now be hidden, thankfully.

Is Chrome lagging behind Chromium in versions, and are there any important differences anyone knows about?

Chromium is the open source project that Google started and Chrome is build upon. Basically Chromium is like a pre-dev version of Chrome. Chromium gets hourly (correct me if I'm wrong) updates and lots of stuff goes in without much testing and a lot of people collaborate to it. Chrome Dev get weekly (mostly) updates and not everything that went in Chromium is put in there (only what Google likes).

Thanks Grasshopper. I know the basics of the two projects, but was curious as to what Google's part in it all was, and how much they modify things for their own releases. I'm thinking of sticking with Chromium now, as I can see Google removing things they don't want in future, and adding junk of their own which ties in with their corporate profit plans.

I had Chrome originally but on two occasions the Dev releases didn't work at all the browser would crash right away so I switched to Chromium knowing the updates are more frequent. I don't think that speaks so well for Google doing more testing.

Chrome also adds some Google specific tracking although its supposedly anonymous for the user.

Bookmark sync worked on Chrome before Chromium so it isn't a case of one having features ahead of the other all the time either.

will users start to switch to Chromium instead of using Dev version of Chrome ?

Maybe I am wrong, but I did some testing a while ago using Chrome and Chromium having the same build, with futermark's tests. The restults were superior for Chrome with a big difference. So, my guess is that Google does some optimizations in Chrome over Chromium, and this could be a reason for users to stick on Chrome.

As StevePaul's said a couple of time Alinescoo, speed is relative to what you're doing, and often changes rapidly due to connection speed, server load, etc. So you could have a slightly faster browser in terms of a few milliseconds as measured by testing sites or software, and see little difference between that and other browsers of roughly similar speed. I'm fairly sure that the Chromium developers will be keeping an eye on what Google do too, and will improve the root version all the time.

Having downloaded the latest Chromium build, rather than Chrome, I find it is faster in use. But for me the question is not slight speed increases as time goes on, but what Google do and don't do. They have corporate policies driven by the need for profit, as in any corporation. That means that the Chrome development team don't have free reign to do as they please, like the Chromium team do. Google will add things which connect to other Google products, to "make it easier to use your Google products", and they'll perhaps leave out things which make it easier for you, eg., proper ad blocking via content policy.

One thing nobody seems to be able to tell me is just what Google's depth of involvement is. For instance, are Google developers actually a part of the Chromium team? Or do they just take the Open Source code from Chromium, change what they want to, and release it as Chrome? If the latter, do they feed what they've improved back into the Chromium project? And perhaps more importantly, are they funding the Chromium team, or individuals, to control the direction it takes? There's such a lot that isn't known, and for millions of users to blindly follow what Google push at us simply because "Google are trusted" is foolishness. That's how Microsoft made slaves of millions of people and companies around the world.

It's all up in the air, and will be for a long time yet, but my feeling right now is to follow the Chromium track.

@Michael3185: I think Google started Chromium so most likely some part of Chromium team is made of Google employ.

so what if their herding us... Lawl
google finances ffox..., i believe they honestly think competition is a good thing, and arnt trying to manopolize it

i have no doubt there fully supporting the chromium team, although im sure a few things get cut for support for other google products >.<
theres so many other google projects that could use some work.. although i love chrome as it is... it could still use quite a bit of work
the fact of the matter, theres no such thing as 'perfect' software
Ideally the users would need only to press a single button, to get where they are going, but ofc that would require mind reading :P, aslong as google uses my thoughts anonamously... im happy with it ^^ (unless them bastards steal my ideas >.<)

That last comment isn't really in the 'spirit of free enterprise and collaboration' is it ?

And to suggest they have no fathers (not the first time either !!) ...