[3] It is a widely-used codebase, providing the vast majority of code for Google Chrome and many other browsers, including Microsoft Edge, Samsung Internet, and Opera.

[9] This licensing permits any party to build the codebase and share the resulting browser executable with the Chromium name and logo.

[3] The Chromium browser codebase is widely used, so others have made important contributions, most notably Microsoft, Igalia, Yandex, Intel, Samsung, LG, Opera, Vivaldi, and Brave.

[16][17] Compared to single-process designs, this architecture has better responsiveness with many browser tabs open and security benefits of process isolation, but with the trade-off of higher memory usage.

[17][20][21] The browser engine was originally based on Apple's WebKit, which Google deemed the "obvious choice" of available options.

[4] This includes the Blink and V8 engines, the implementation of HTTP and other protocols, the internal caching system, the extension API, and most of the user interface.

[6][4] Third-party libraries that provide essential functionality,[25] such as SQLite and numerous codecs, are written in C, C++, or beginning in 2023,[26][27] the newer Rust language.

[4] Support for mobile operating systems requires special languages: for Android both Java and Kotlin, and for iOS both Objective-C and Swift.

[32] 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.

Chromium soon incorporated native theming for Linux, using the GTK+ toolkit to allow it fit into the GNOME desktop environment.

[41] 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".

These include background web applications, host remoting (allowing users centrally to control features and settings on other computers) and cloud printing.

[47][48][49] 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.

Development priorities focused on reducing the size of the executable, integrating web applications and plug-ins, cloud computing, and touch interface support.

[53][54] 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.

Much of the early work in this area concentrated on shrinking the size of WebKit, the image resizer, and the Android build system.

[64][65] 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.

[70] Tab indicators for audio and webcam usage were also added, as was automatic blocking of files detected as malware.