Chromium

Chromium is an open source project. They make two products.

Chromium Browser

Chromium is an open-source Web Browser project that aims to build a safer, faster, and more stable way for all users to experience the web. This is based on the Chrome browser. Chromium should work anywhere that the Chrome browser will work. One difference between Chromium browser and the Chrome browser is that the Chromium version will not auto update. Pre-built versions can be found on the Internet.

Chromium OS

Chromium OS is an open-source project that aims to provide a fast, simple, and more secure computing experience for people who spend most of their time on the web. This is based on the Chrome OS. Generally you would build this from scratch using available C and C++ sources however, there are some unofficial pre-built versions available. To build Chromium OS you will need.

• Any x86_64 Ubuntu Linux distribution running a 2.6.16+ kernel
• a 64-bit system for performing the build
• an account with sudo access
• the source code, build environment
• target device must be one of
  • x86-generic - builds a generic image suitable for computers with a x86-compatible CPU (32 bit)
  • amd64-generic - builds a generic image suitable for computers with a x86_64-compatible CPU (64 bit)
  • arm-generic - builds a generic image suitable for computers with an ARM CPU (32 bit)
• Once built you will copy to a USB drive and boot up on the target hardware set to boot from USB. Then you would run the install command.

Features

• Chromium matches Chrome OS with the exception of automatic updates.
• The Web browser and therefore a part of Chromium OS is a HTML transfer protocol called SPDY (pronounced SPeeDY) which compresses and streamlines the transfer of data. See SPDY whitepaper and Wikipedia for more details. Note that this is being replaced by HTTP/2.

Updating a Windows Machine

• how to turn your old slow laptop into an awesome chromebook for your kids