Chromium

Chromium may look just like Chrome with a different icon and, for the most part, it is, but it's more geared towards "power users" and for open-source projects. The most significant differences are Chromium being less annoying with warnings (when using custom extensions for instance), it doesn't silently install any auto updaters and it has fewer user tracking features (no RLZ). And of course, you can modify it, but the codebase is so huge and complicated, it's most likely not worth it.

If you'd like to try it, I highly recommend downloading an unofficial build with all the auvio/video codecs built in from here: chromium.woolyss.com

Google will limit the capability of adblock extensions drastically especially for uBlock Origin with their manifest v3 which includes radical changes like 30k filter limit and disabling dynamic filters. I will not recommend it anymore, it became an evil and and starting to become a considerable threat to open source world and security within privacy of users.

Firefox, Opera, Vivaldi, Brave and so much alternatives have all same feature sets and maybe even more. Like better developer tools and better extension support in Firefox, VPN and Turbo support in Opera, better theme customization in Vivaldi etc.

Google Chrome have become just a habit for most of users but its abilities are not greater than alternatives. They rely on it just like Internet Explorer relied it years ago.

As a stand-alone browser it's not quite Chrome minus Google, but it doesn't have as much branding, tracking, or attempts to funnel you into Google's services. Better on Linux where you can use your system's package manager or Flathub to install and update it. (On Windows and macOS it's basically the in-development tree for Chrome.) Even then it's missing features like syncing that you'll need to add with an extension, or use a more polished browser built on the engine.

Google and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

Tested slower than Brave and Thorium, but both of those don't have cookie whitelisting. Neither does Chromium, but Chromium and Brave whitelisting can be done in the CCleaner program. Updating is somewhat confusing, I recommend using the updater at https://github.com/henrypp/chrlauncher/releases/tag/v.2.6 for Windows; Your extensions, bookmarks etc will carryover. Use the shortcut for chrome_pwa_launcher Check that you are running the newer version from help and then copy over that icon shortcut to your taskbar etc. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/bookmark-favicon-changer/acmfnomgphggonodopogfbmkneepfgnh extension will help reset the favicons to show right

Chromium and has custom protocols since 13.

https://web.dev/registering-a-custom-protocol-handler

It's nice to use! Also is useful if Chrome doesn't work for a reason.