2008 to 2010 Google Chrome debuted in September 2008, and along with its release, the Chromium source code was also made available, allowing builds to be constructed from it. Upon release, Chrome was criticized for storing a
user's
passwords without the protection of a master password. Google has insisted that a master password provides no real
security against knowledgeable
hackers, but users argued that it would protect against co-workers or family members borrowing a computer and being able to view stored passwords as
plaintext. In December 2009, Chromium developer P. Kasting stated: "A master password was issue 1397. That issue is closed. We will not implement a master password. Not now, not ever. Arguing for it won't make it happen. 'A bunch of people would like it' won't make it happen. Our design decisions are not democratic. You cannot always have what you want." Version 3 was the first
alpha available for
Linux. Chromium soon incorporated native theming for Linux, using the
GTK+ toolkit to allow it fit into the
GNOME desktop environment. Version 3 also introduced
JavaScript engine optimizations and user-selectable themes. Version 6 introduced features for user interface
minimalism, as one of Google's goals was to make the browser "feel lightweight (cognitively and physically) and fast". The changes were a unified tools menu, no home button by default (although user configurable), a combined reload/stop button, and the bookmark bar deactivated by default. It also introduced an integrated
PDF reader,
WebM and
VP8 support for use with
HTML video, and a smarter
URL bar. Version 7 boosted performance to twice that of prior versions via
hardware acceleration. Version 8 focused on improved integration into
ChromeOS and improved
cloud features. These include background
web applications, host remoting (allowing users centrally to control features and settings on other computers) and cloud printing.
2011 In February, Google announced that it was considering large-scale
user interface (UI) changes, including at least partial elimination of the
URL bar, which had been a mainstay of browsers since the early years of
the Web. The proposed UI was to be a consolidation of the row of tabs and the row of navigation buttons, the menu, and URL bar into a single row. The justification was freeing up more screen space for
web page content. Google acknowledged that this would result in URLs not always being visible to the user, that navigation controls and menus may lose their context, and that the resulting single line could be quite crowded. However, by August, Google decided that these changes were too risky and shelved the idea. In March, Google announced other directions for the project. Development priorities focused on reducing the size of the
executable, integrating
web applications and
plug-ins,
cloud computing, and
touch interface support. Thus a multi-profile button was introduced to the UI, allowing users to log into multiple Google and other accounts in the same browser instance. Other additions were
malware detection and support for hardware-accelerated
CSS transforms. By May, the results of Google's attempts to reduce the file size of Chromium were already being noted. Much of the early work in this area concentrated on shrinking the size of
WebKit, the
image resizer, and the
Android build system. Subsequent work introduced a more compact mobile version that reduced the vertical space of the UI. Other changes in 2011 were
GPU acceleration on all pages, adding support for the new
Web Audio API, and the
Google Native Client (NaCl) which permits native code supplied by third parties as platform-neutral binaries to be securely executed within the browser itself. Google's
Skia graphics library was also made available for all Chromium versions.
Since 2012 The sync service added for Google Chrome in 2012 could also be used by Chromium builds. The same year, a new
API for high-quality video and audio communication was added, enabling
web applications to access the user's
webcam and
microphone after asking permission to do so. Then
GPU accelerated video decoding for
Windows and support for the
QUIC protocol were added. In 2013, Chromium's modified
WebKit rendering engine was officially
forked as the
Blink engine. Other changes in 2013 were the ability to reset user profiles and new
browser extension APIs. Tab indicators for audio and webcam usage were also added, as was automatic blocking of files detected as
malware. Version 67 added the security benefit of per-
process website isolation. The same year, new measures were added to curtail abusive advertising. Since 2021, the Google Chrome sync service can no longer be used by Chromium builds. Also, starting with version 89, only
Intel and
AMD processors with the
SSE3 instruction set or later are supported. Starting with version 110, only
Windows 10 and later are supported for Windows users. == Third-party ports ==