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How private is Chromium for Windows, Linux and Android? Will a standard Chromium installation contain code that will phone home to Google or otherwise send out identifying information? Are there other possible privacy implications with Chromium / things to consider on a fresh installation?

Anders
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mikkalm
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    This is a pretty easy question to research. "Chromium phone home" returns a ton of results. Each saying clearly that it does phone home. Did you have a more specific question? – schroeder Dec 04 '16 at 09:41
  • According to PrivacyTools, Chromium does not preserve privacy. For instance, there is no way to prevent WebRTC leak. https://www.privacytools.io/#browser – Aventinus Dec 04 '16 at 13:23
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    @schroeder: I agree I could have been more specific, and I agree that it returns a ton of results. The thing is, these results are for the most part outdated (more than 2 years old for a browser, which might all be completely irrelevant today), and/or from unreliable sources / people with no knowledge of the subject. A lot of people also are talking about Chrome and not Chromium, just like the other person that answered here. My question is if I can achieve privacy (by this I mean, stop the calling home from sending user-sensitive information to Google) easily with settings on Win/Lin/Android – mikkalm Dec 04 '16 at 13:55
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    great point about the old notices; i often see folks on here referring to bugs that were patched 5 years ago, which is a lifetime in web years, considering the 16 week dev cycle. – dandavis Dec 04 '16 at 14:36
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    @mikkalm can you edit the question and add the same point there? – Limit Dec 04 '16 at 15:01
  • from your comment above it looks like you could just google "how to stop chrome phoning home?" and apply every tip you can find, if its relevant or not you will find out really fast – Purefan Jan 20 '17 at 12:03

1 Answers1

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According to Chromium's official webpage:

The Google Chrome Privacy Notice describes the privacy practices that are specific to the Google Chrome family of products

This means, that as Chromium is part of the family of products of Google Chrome, the same privacy notices apply.

Furthermore the webpage also says:

If you want to learn more about Google Chrome's privacy features you can also check out the Google Chrome Privacy landing page and the Google Chrome Privacy Whitepaper which describes what information is transmitted to Google and why, as well as how to disable certain features in Google Chrome which affect your privacy.

As we previously learned that the same privacy notices apply to all of Google Chrome family of products, this 2 also apply to Chromium.

After further research, I founally found this:

Browser modes You don't need to provide any personal information to use Chrome, but Chrome has different modes that you can use to change or improve your browsing experience. Privacy practices are different depending on the mode that you're using.

And:

The basic browser mode stores information locally on your system. This information might include:

  • Browsing History Information. For example, Chrome stores the URLs of pages that you visit, a cache of text, images and other resources from those pages and, if the network actions prediction feature is turned on, a list of some of the IP addresses linked from those pages.
  • Personal information and passwords, to help you fill out forms or sign in to sites you visit.
  • A list of permissions that you have granted to websites.
  • Thumbnail-sized screenshots of pages that you visit most often.
  • Cookies or data from websites that you visit. Data saved by add-ons.
  • A record of what you downloaded from websites.

This also might be useful:

Information for website operators: Sites that you visit using Chrome will automatically receive standard log information, including your system’s IP address and data from cookies or similar technologies. In general, the fact that you use Chrome to access Google services, such as Gmail, does not cause Google to receive any additional personally identifying information about you. On Google websites and other websites that opt in, if Chrome detects signs that you are being actively attacked by someone on the network (a "man in the middle attack"), Chrome may send information about that connection to Google or the website that you visited to help determine the extent of the attack and how the attack functions. Google provides participating website owners with reports about attacks occurring on their sites.

In conclusion, yes. Chromium in fact does share your information with Google.

Joaco Castellano
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