Chrome vs Chromium User-Agent Differences
Understand the differences between Google Chrome and Chromium User-Agent strings. Learn how to detect the open-source Chromium browser vs. the branded Chrome product.
Detailed Explanation
Chrome vs. Chromium User-Agent Strings
Google Chrome and Chromium are closely related but have distinct User-Agent strings. Understanding the difference is important for browser analytics.
Chrome UA
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
Chromium UA
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chromium/120.0.0.0 Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
Key Difference
Chromium includes both Chromium/VERSION and Chrome/VERSION tokens, while Chrome only includes Chrome/VERSION. This is the reliable way to distinguish them:
- Has
Chromium/→ Chromium browser - Has
Chrome/but noChromium/→ Google Chrome (or a Chromium fork)
What Is Chromium?
Chromium is the open-source browser project that Google Chrome is built upon. Key differences:
| Feature | Chrome | Chromium |
|---|---|---|
| License | Proprietary (Google) | Open-source (BSD) |
| Auto-updates | Yes | Depends on distribution |
| Google services | Built-in (sync, translate) | Not included |
| Widevine DRM | Included | Not included |
| PDF viewer | Included | Varies |
| AAC/H.264 codecs | Included | May not be included |
Where Chromium Is Used
- Linux distributions — Many Linux distros ship Chromium instead of Chrome (Debian, Ubuntu snap, Fedora)
- Embedded systems — Kiosks, digital signage, IoT devices
- Testing — Headless Chromium for automated testing (Puppeteer, Playwright)
Headless Chrome/Chromium
Headless browsers used for testing include HeadlessChrome in their UA:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) HeadlessChrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
This is useful for detecting automated testing or scraping tools.
Parsing Consideration
When parsing, check for Chromium/ before Chrome/ if you need to distinguish them. However, for most web development purposes, Chromium and Chrome can be treated identically since they share the same rendering engine.
Use Case
DevOps and IT teams in enterprise environments track Chromium installations on Linux workstations for security patch compliance. Analytics teams distinguish Chrome from Chromium to understand the true Chrome market share, especially in markets where Linux desktop usage is significant.