Recs.
Updated
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro Supports almost all of Google Chrome features
As Chrome is based on Chromium they overlap in supported features. Chromium syncs between devices, automatically updates, has great built-in developer tools, installs extensions without a restart, includes a combined text bar for entering URLs and searching and has excellent HTML5 compatibility just like Chrome.
Pro Actively supported by Google
Chromium was first released as a large portion of Chrome's source code as an open source project by Google in september 2008. The idea was to encourage developers to review the underlying code and to contribute in making Chrome cross platform and port it to Mac and Linux as well.
Nowadays Chromium is a large project with a huge community that's standing behind it but still Google continues to take an extremely active role in Chromium development. This ensures the longevity and constant development and improvement of the browser.
Pro Backed by Google
Chromium was first released as a large portion of Chrome's source code as an open source project by Google in September 2008. The idea was to encourage developers to review the underlying code and to contribute in making Chrome cross-platform and port it to Mac and Linux as well.
Nowadays Chromium is a large project with a huge community that's standing behind it but still Google continues to take an extremely active role in Chromium's development. This ensures the longevity and constant development and improvement of the browser.
Pro Included as default in many distributions
Chromium is included as the default browser for many Linux distributions, and for those that isn't it's available through official repositories for easy downloading.
Cons
Con Misses some proprietary multimedia codecs
Unlike Chrome, Chromium misses proprietary multimedia codecs per default. There might be some ways over ffmpeg and co but it is still a gray zone. Also by enabling, it also removes one of the core features of Chromium of being open source software.
Con Constant Changes
After yesterday's upgrade (version 78.0.3904.87) the context menu for tabs is completely messed up. Closing all other tabs is missing and you can only close tabs on the right (not on the left), bookmarking all tabs is only available at the end of the bar, not in the context menu for tabs anymore. Same for re-opening closed tabs. That too moved from tab context to the end of the bar. Might sound like a small issue. But for long-term users it's highly annoying and completely messes up flow.
Con Search dialog disappears with each new page
If trying to search for the occurrence of a word or phrase on multiple web pages, for each new page you need to bring up the Find dialog again.
Recommendations
Comments
Flagged Pros + Cons
Con Can be dangerous / only available as Source
There are plenty of unofficial Chromium distributors and every one of them can disable specific features (like sandboxing) for their build, so you will never know what you get.
Pro Supports all of Google Chrome features
As Chrome is based on Chromium they overlap in supported features. Chromium syncs between devices, automatically updates, has great built-in developer tools, installs extensions without a restart, includes a combined text bar for entering URLs and searching and has excellent HTML5 compatibility just like Chrome.