Chromium - ArchWiki

# Chromium

Related articles

- Chromium/Tips and tricks
- Browser plugins
- Firefox
- Opera

Chromium is an open-source graphical web browser from "The Chromium Project", based on the Blink rendering engine.

## Installation

The open-source project, Chromium, can be installed with the chromium package.

Other alternatives include:

- Chromium Beta Channel — the beta version

  https://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/ || not packaged? search in AUR

- Chromium Dev Channel — the development version

  https://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/ || chromium-devAUR

- Chromium snapshot builds — the untested nightly version

  https://build.chromium.org/ || chromium-snapshot-binAUR

- Chromium with VA-API support — with a patch to enable VA-API

  https://www.chromium.org/ || chromium-vaapiAUR

- Chromium with GTK+ 3 — built with gtk3 instead of gtk2

  https://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/ || chromium-gtk3AUR

The derived browser, Google Chrome, bundled with Widevine EME (for e.g. Netflix), can be installed with the google-chromeAUR package.

Other alternatives include:

- Google Chrome Beta Channel — the beta version

  https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/beta.html || google-chrome-betaAUR

- Google Chrome Dev Channel — the development version

  https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/ || google-chrome-devAUR

Note:

- Google Chrome dropped 32 bits support, and only supports 64 bits installation.
- Support for native client (NaCl) has been dropped in chromium version 54, see FS#51511. Opening NaCl applications will display this error message: "This plugin is not supported". The google-chromeAUR package supports NaCl.

See these two articles for an explanation of the differences between Stable/Beta/Dev, as well as Chromium vs. Chrome and an explanation of the version numbering.

On top of the different Chromium build channels, a number of forks exist with more or less special features; see List of applications#Blink-based.

## Configuration

### Default applications

To set Chromium as the default browser and to change which applications Chromium launches when opening downloaded files, see default applications.

### Flash Player plugin

Note: Chromium no longer supports the Netscape plugin API (NPAPI), so flashplugin from the repositories cannot be used.

The Flash Player plugin, using the new Pepper plugin API.

To install it for Chromium or Chrome, install the pepper-flashAUR package.

Add the following line (replace the version with the latest one) to `~/.config/chrome-dev-flags.conf`.

    --ppapi-flash-path=/usr/lib/PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so --ppapi-flash-version=25.0.0.171

Make sure Flash is allowed to run in `chrome://settings/content`.

### Widevine Content Decryption Module plugin

Widevine is Google's Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) Content Decryption Module (CDM). It is used to watch premium video content such as Netflix. It is automatically installed when using Google Chrome.

To install it for Chromium, install the chromium-widevineAUR package.

Make sure Allow sites to play protected content is checked in `chrome://settings/content`.

### PDF viewer plugin

Chromium and Google Chrome are bundled with the Chromium PDF Viewer plugin, so installing a third-party plugin is not required.

If you prefer another implementation, check Open PDF files in the default PDF viewer application at the bottom of `chrome://settings/content`, and install one of the alternatives from Browser plugins#PDF viewer.

### Certificates

Chromium uses NSS for certificate management. Certificates can be managed in `chrome://settings/certificates`.

## Tips and tricks

See the main article: Chromium/Tips and tricks.

## Troubleshooting

### Constant freezes under KDE

Uninstall libcanberra-pulse. See: BBS#1228558.

### Fonts

Note: Chromium does not fully integrate with fontconfig/GTK/Pango/X/etc. due to its sandbox. For more information, see the Linux Technical FAQ.

#### Font rendering issues in PDF plugin

To fix the font rendering in some PDFs one has to install the ttf-liberation package, otherwise the substituted font causes text to run into other text. This was reported on the chromium bug tracker by an Arch user.

### Force 3D acceleration

Warning: Disabling the rendering blacklist may cause unstable behaviour, including crashes of the host. See the bug reports in `chrome://gpu`.

First follow Hardware video acceleration. Then, to force 3D rendering, enable the flags: "Override software rendering list", "GPU rasterization", "Zero-copy rasterizer" in `chrome://flags`. Check if it is working in `chrome://gpu`. This may also alleviate tearing issues with the radeon driver.

If "Native GpuMemoryBuffers" under `chrome://gpu` mentions software rendering, you additionally need to pass the `--enable-native-gpu-memory-buffers` flag, or some optimizations (like the zero-copy rasterizer) won't do anything. This flag isn't available under `chrome://flags` - it must be passed in either the chromium-flags.conf file (as noted in Chromium/Tips and tricks#Making flags persistent) or directly on the command line.

### WebGL

Warning: Catalyst does not support the `GL_ARB_robustness` extension. When using this driver, it is possible that a malicious site could use WebGL to perform a DoS attack on your graphic card.

There is the possibility that your graphics card has been blacklisted by Chromium. See #Force 3D acceleration.

If you are using Chromium with Bumblebee, WebGL might crash due to GPU sandboxing. In this case, you can disable GPU sandboxing with `optirun chromium --disable-gpu-sandbox`.

Visit `chrome://gpu/` for debugging information about WebGL support.

Chromium can save incorrect data about your GPU in your user profile (e.g. if you use switch between an Nvidia card using Optimus and Intel, it will show the Nvidia card in `chrome://gpu` even when you're not using it or primusrun/optirun). Running using a different user directory, e.g, `chromium --user-data-dir=$(mktemp -d)` may solve this issue. For a persistent solution you can reset the GPU information by deleting `~/.config/chromium/Local\ State`.

### Distorted GUI

Chromium's graphical interface may look unsightly, distorted and zoomed in on high-DPI displays. To disable any attempts to scale display according to device DPI, use `--force-device-scale-factor=1`.

### Disable keyring password prompt

The factual accuracy of this article or section is disputed.

Reason: Is this a reference to a chrome 53 bug? [1] If so, it's fixed in 53.0.2785.101-1 (Discuss in Talk:Chromium#)

See GNOME/Keyring#Passwords are not remembered. You may also need to edit the Chromium command line to append `--password-store=gnome`.

### Chromecasts in the network are not discovered

You will need to enable the Media Router Component Extension in `chrome://flags/#load-media-router-component-extension`.

## See also

- Chromium homepage
- Google Chrome release notes
- Chrome web store
- Differences between Chromium and Google Chrome
- List of Chromium command-line switches

Category:

- Web browser

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- Pages or sections flagged with Template:Accuracy