One of the main concerns around using Google’s “free” services and applications is that the company tracks and uses people’s data to better serve them ads. This is especially true for anyone who wants to protect their privacy and doesn’t want their data sent all over the internet. Thankfully, a developer on Github has created ungoogled-chromium — Chrome without the built-in Google services…
Built on top of the open-source version of Google Chrome, Chromium, ungoogled brings together the classic Chrome look and feel while better protecting your privacy by removing or disabling services that communicate directly with Google.
Below is the full list of “features” that makes ungoogled different compared to the public version of Chrome:
- Disable or remove offending services and features that communicate with Google or weaken privacy
- Strip binaries from the source tree, and use those provided by the system or build them from source
- Add, modify, or disable features that inhibit control and transparency (these changes are minor and do not have significant impacts on the general user experience)
Ungoogled is currently available on Mac OS, Windows, Ubuntu, and Debian. If you want to download it for your computer, you can head on over to the Github release page and download the latest build for your system. Just remember that since this is not an official Google build of Chrome, you will not receive automatic updates so you will have to check the Github page regularly to download the latest build of ungoogled-chromium to make sure you have the latest security patches
Add repository and install manually
For Debian Buster 10
echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/ungoogled_chromium/Debian_Buster/ /' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/home:ungoogled_chromium.list
curl -fsSL https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:ungoogled_chromium/Debian_Buster/Release.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/home:ungoogled_chromium.gpg > /dev/null
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ungoogled-chromium
For Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal:
echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/ungoogled_chromium/Ubuntu_Focal/ /' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/home:ungoogled_chromium.list
curl -fsSL https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:ungoogled_chromium/Ubuntu_Focal/Release.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/home:ungoogled_chromium.gpg > /dev/null
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ungoogled-chromium
For Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic:
echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/ungoogled_chromium/Ubuntu_Bionic/ /' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/home:ungoogled_chromium.list
curl -fsSL https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:ungoogled_chromium/Ubuntu_Bionic/Release.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/home:ungoogled_chromium.gpg > /dev/null
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ungoogled-chromium
Install Addons
If you want addons in ungoogled chromium you can either create profile using regular chromium, install all the addons you want with it from the google store, and then remove chromium and re-open that profile with ungoogled chromium, (when you uninstall chromium it doesn't delete your browser profiles) or what I recommend is using https://crxextractor.com/ to get a .crx of any addon you want to use and installing it manually.
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