Chromium Reviews

Updates are handled via an updater extension. be sure you are running a more recent version. you have to install an updater extension manually, it's included in the DMG file
http://www.freesmug.org/chromium
scroll down, read the description

Chromium is not signed because it is open source and not 'owned' per se by any one particular developer or organization. As a user you can do the following:
In System Preferences/Security & Privacy/General tab, you see options for 'Allow apps downloaded from: Mac App Store, Mac App Store and identified developers, and third Anywhere'. YOu can select 'Anywhere'.

However, this means any unsigned software including possible malware is permitted. Unless you are very sure about the sources of your software, I would not select Anywhere, and for sure, casual users and non techies, should not use 'Anywhere'.

This leads to the other, more recommended option. Locate Chromium in the Applications folder in Finder. Highlight app and RIGHT mouse click on it to bring up Optionss menu, select 'Open'. After a few moments, macOS will respond back with something like 'Are you really sure blah blah', select 'Open' again from that pop up. Chromium should then load. You should only need to do this RIGHT click open ONE TIME for that version of Chromium. As long as you respond Yes to the second prompt, macOS will remember your choice and thereafter you can launch Chromium normally with left mouse click or from the Dock like any other app.

Note, that if you update Chromium to a new version, macOS treats it as a new app, so you have to repeat the RIGHT mouse click, 'open' process again ONE TIME (for that version of Chromium).

The developer who maintains this edition of Chromium had been signing builds prior to v. 70.0.3538.102 with an Apple Developer ID certificate. All subsequent versions, however, have not been signed.

I can't find any documentation noting this change, and I saw that others had reached out to the developer on social media asking about it and there was no reply.

I should have been more specific about my concern. Thanks for the info, Mcr :)

The developer decided to not renew their Apple Developer account. Therefore, they no longer have access to an Apple Developer certificate to sign the app with. This information was a little difficult to find, but it is in their forums here:

http://www.freesmug.org/forum/t-8093500/chromium-osx-70-0-3538-67-available

See my comments below: no Chromium 68 based browsers won't work on Mavericks.
There's only one version 68 that will run on Mavericks, and frankly I don't understand why it does, beware that it's a dev version: https://github.com/macchrome/chromium/releases/tag/v68.0.3398.0-r550900-macOS
I'm using it with no issue. Note that there's not much difference with v67...
Opera and Vivaldi are still using pre 68 Chromium and are not planned to switch to 68 right now, as far as I know, may be you can give them a try. ;-)

Hmmm... I must amend myself: I've just read the release notes of Opera Beta and the next version (55) will ship Chromium 68.
That leaves us with Vivaldi, which release pace is slower: its snapshots of the soon-to-be-released version 1.16 are still shipping Chromium 67...

Same here but now it goes to the new source forge page, but no link to chromium

Okay, I've looked everywhere to figure this out. Please, what is PuP?

How hard could it be to manually enter your credentials only the first time you access the site?

Is Chromium going to sync saved passwords with my other browsers and phone? Uh-uh

Is Chromium going to display a password generator to create secure passwords? Nope.

Is Chromium going to fill in credit card information? No way.

Will Chromium fill in alternate identities? Negative

Is Chromium going to protect my passwords with 256-bit AES encryption? Absolutely not.


Browsers leak information and have vulnerabilities which can be exploited to reveal personal information. Therefore I don't allow browsers to save passwords.


FYI Chromium may not be as safe as you think it is.
Have you actually researched its weak points, or do you blindly
(and falsely) believe that it's a completely safe browser?


On June 20, 2017, a security website said this:
"Multiple vulnerabilities have been found in the Chromium web browser, the worst of which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code.

A remote attacker could possibly execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the process, cause a Denial of Service condition, obtain sensitive information, bypass security restrictions or spoof content.

There is no known workaround at this time."

That was for v59, just three months ago.


So if you want to trust Chromium to keep your data safe, you go right on ahead.
As for me, I'll continue keeping them under lock and key in 1Password.


Hey dude, surfs up - go catch that sick wave, brah!

After a while, I've realized that there's a build including all the missing codecs, available on this page: https://chromium.woolyss.com/ (the blue pane, "Marmaduke edition")
Of course, nobody knows who is this Marmaduke, it's up to you to trust him or not. ;-)
I'm using the "No sync" version, had no crash, and could connect (and stay connected) to the services I use (the search engine, Gmail and Translate).
Depending on each site, some work with or without Flash or not at all, Marmaduke or not...

Regards Flash, there is a trick to installing PPAPI for Chromium Mac, even if you install the plugin using Adobe's installer, Chromium may not always find the plugin in the default Library/Internet plug ins/PepperFlashPlayer folder, even site by site. Use this Terminal command :
do shell script "/Applications/Chromium.app/Contents/MacOS/Chromium --ppapi-flash-path=/Library/Internet\\ Plug-Ins/PepperFlashPlayer/PepperFlashPlayer.plugin --ppapi-flash-version=23.0.0.185 &"

Replace the version number (23.0 etc) at the very end with the correct version number of the plugin you have installed, keep the double quotes around everything, very important. You can also use this command in an AppleScript or Automator app, to simply using it. In some cases I have found you only need to do this once and thereafter Chromium 'remembers' for lack of a better word where to find the plug in; other systems, i hAVe had to always launch Chromium with this script. I haven't found a rhyme or reason. This command in the address bar will report back if Chromium has loaded the plugin: chrome://flash/

Regards codecs, Chromium OTB (Out of the Box) and otherwise distributed versions does not have the codecs enabled for H.264 and several other media types; it is not a 'bug' or oversight, it is intentional, the reasons are mainly legal and political,
1) legal - many codecs, in particular h.264, but also applies to other popular codecs (mp3 audio, AAC audio) are covered by patents/licenses which require fees to be paid to the licensing or governing body. Google pays the fee to be able to distribute h.264 codec in Chrome, but not Chromium. (no surprise). On firefox, Cisco initially came out several years ago with a h.264 video extension and paid the licensing for everyone, currently I believe (could be wrong) Mozilla picks up the bill because you no longer need the Cisco add on to play h.264 video. Microsoft obviously has agreements in place to include on IE and Edge, and Apple pays the fees so it can include in Safari. All of these folks can afford it, and these fees can be very expensive, in the millions yearly. But Chromium builds are distributed by regularly folks willing to compile the code, these folks would be liable for violating licensing if they distribute their builds with the codecs turned on. Since these folks are for the most doing these builds as a public service, I venture most don't even come close to having the deep pockets or inclination to pay any fees. Understand, if you have the know how, inclination and tools, anyone can compile their own Chromium build; it is open source. If you compile for your own use alone, you can enable the codecs and be happy as a lark. BUT if you distribute your build, you then fall under the requirement to pay the licensing fee.

2) Political - Chromium does actual have h.264 capability in its code, but is turned OFF by default (or should be turned off by anyone compiling Chromium with intent to distribute); one to avoid the licensing as mentioned already, but two because Google essentially dictates much of the direction to the development project, and for obvious reasons they don't want people using Chromium, they want you to use Chrome so they can benefit financial (ads, data mining, etc) so Google has zero incentive to encourage use of Chromium over Chrome. so one of the 'enticements' is, by applying pressure to keep certain media support out of generally available releases of Chromium, if you want media support, you are "encouraged" wink wink to have switch to Chrome. The 99% non-technical people who can't be bothered and just want everything to 'work' will be guided towards using Chrome, because it's so readily available and pushed down your throat everywhere you turn; pre-loaded on many Windows PCs, or included with so many other apps as part of the installer (especially Windows world).

It's possible the situation could change, but most people don't anticipate it anytime soon, so much money is made on the licensing. so if anyone is expecting to wait until Chromium resolves this deficiency or whatever you want to call it, I wouldn't wait around. Switch to Chrome and accept all that comes with that (Google privacy concerns, 'spy ware' etc, ).

So how does Marmaduke and his build get around this and include the codecs? I don't know the specific, but if I had to guess its because the build is positioned as a "developer" build, this is not for general public distribution. Of course, anyone can download it, if you know where to find it. BUT THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND to anyone thinking of using the Marmaduke builds; it IS a developer build; it will have bugs, both known and undiscovered. And it's not just a developer build, but NIGHTLY builds, fresh off the presses every evening so to speak, untested for the most part. However unlikely, it is possible that any particular nightly build could have serious issues; by definition, this is work in progress code. Extensions might not run that do run fine on 'stable' builds. User beware! Personally, I would not use nightly builds for anything important, such as work or personal related or any situation where you must be assured there are no privacy loopholes or data leaks; your online banking for example, accessing cloud storage is another, sites where you are entering personal information.. Only if you are testing, in which case you would (should) be using dummy data, not your own personal data. this is just my opinion, YMMV.

Yes, you're right! :-)
I've also read that you can activate h.264 but haven't found how.
Is it only when compiling the source or is there any trick to do it afterwards?

AArgl, the PC answer is that it must be enabled during compile. and that it is only for personal use, no (re)distribution. Whether it can be enabled later, a Google search on that may prove useful ;-)

It is important to distinguish Chromium from Chrome. Chromium is the open source from which Google's Chrome is derived; and for the most part Chromium is free of the tracking that Google inserts into Chrome.

Allthough Google contributes bug fixes and such back to the Chromium project, the overseers of the project and the licensing of Chromium is supposed to keep Chromium free of any company specific features, including telemetry.

Secondly, there are search engines that do NOT track or send any info, for example duckduckgo.com. Of course, the search results may differ from using duckduckgo vs google, but 90% of the time I found the results comparable, and only fall back to Google search for the remaining 10%.

Also, be aware that Mozilla later this year will drop support for Firefox Addons (target is version 57 in November 2017) With version 57 Firefox will only support Web Extensions which are essentially the same as Chromium / Chrome extensions. This is not making the majority of Firefox users happy; see this blog
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/02/16/the-road-to-firefox-57-compatibility-milestones/
All the addons like Classic Theme Restorer, etc that modify the UI, will no longer work. DowtloadThemAll, my favorite download manager, will no longer work, The majority of these addons can not be rewritten or migrated.

The main reason I have stuck with Firefox as my day to day is precisely because of the addons that are available. Once that goes away, and I can't modify FF the way I want, I will have to ask myself, what will FF offer that is unique over Chromium?

Opera, is also migrating towards using Chromium as its base. So Mac users pretty soon will basically have two mainstream choices, Safari or Chromium (or one of its derivatives). The former CEO of Mozilla, started up a new company "Brave" and developing a new browser with privacy protection and ad blocking built in , not relying on addons or extension or 3rd parties. Only in beta still but you can try the Mac beta now, brave.com

"using a Google browser avoids sharing this information with a browser from another company such as Apple or Mozilla"

Huh? If you are searching in Google, or using gmail, Google, knows what you were looking up, even if you are using Safari, Apple NEVER tracks that stuff.

Mcr> do you know why Chromium's version featured here is v60 while at https://chromium.woolyss.com/download/fr/#mac (which seems to be the official repository), it's 62.0.3177.0 ???
In fact, freesmug.org doesn't seem to be the developer of Chromium, rather a repository for Open Source Software.
Or is it that the other website is for Betas?

@aargl woolyss.com is not the official repository, in fact it says right on the home page it has no affiliation with the chromium authors. The project is hosted at https://www.chromium.org/developers. It is up to other parties to take the code and compile it into working binaries (aka "apps").

The hosters of woolyss.com are providing a service by providing a 'one stop' location to access the various builds (compiled apps) of Chromium on the various operating platforms; Windows, Mac, 'Nix, etc. It's very helpful to developers who have to test that their sites work correctly on all flavors of Chrome/Chromium, on all OS's, to be able to go to one site and find the latest stable and development builds.

Like many development projects, Chromium is compiled constantly, often every day/night, each compile is called a build. There are 'nightly' builds which are really meant for developers and testers to test bug fixes and new features in progress, and so on. These nightly developers builds are not ready for prime time. Every so often, the groups will determine that one build is stable enough to be released as a 'stable version', intended for use by the general public (non developers). The stable build version number will always lag behind the current build number, so as of this date v60 is the stable version that most people should use. v62 is the most current 'nightly' build or development build. You can think of a stable release of Chromium as like the latest release macOS Sierra 10.12.x, and nightly builds of Chromium would be like the beta releases of macOS High Sierra 10.13.

Unless you develop for Chromium, or develop web apps and sites and need to test for compatibility with the latest Chromium, you should stick with stable releases.

Freesmug is a site whose developers have taken the responsibility to compile and or provide links to the most current STABLE Mac versions of Chromium, as well as other open source apps. It is a safe and dependable location to always find the most recent STABLE build of Chromium for the Mac. Be careful what you download from woolyss.com; developer builds are by definition 'works in progress', they can / WILL have bugs, and some extensions may have issues. If you wish to play, suggest you create a different Mac user account and run nightly builds there, so you don't risk any data, or overwrite your current 'good' Chromium profile in your every day account.

Thanks a lot for such a thorough explanation! :-)
In fact, what brought me to woolyss.com is that I was searching for a pc version to advise a friend and it sounded like something official... Googling doesn't bring anywhere with stable versions, so it's a bit misleading.
Even worse, this page (https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel) points only to Google Chrome versions!

@aargl The Chromium project publishes the source code, but the project typically doesn't get involved in providing compiled versions for public use. it is up to other people to compile it. Google obviously has no incentive to provide any builds of Chromium, just Chrome. Anyone is free to compile the code. By all means, use woolyss.com, at this link http://chromium.woolyss.com/
It is a RELIABLE and SAFE site to retrieve builds of both betas and stable. The site owner retrieves the source direct from github and soundforge. Scroll down on that page and you will see latest stable builds for Windows, in both installer and portable versions.

So what determines what is 'stable'. That is not a simple answer. The project does at times earmark a particular build number as 'stable'. Periodically, Google will decide, using whatever criteria it uses, that a specific Chromium release of code will be used to generate a new public release of Chrome; it may follow the recommendation of the project, and often does, but not necessarily. Usually the criteria is pretty reasonable; the build fixes some major bugs, plugs security holes, implements a new feature etc. And, most important, has been tested enough that Google feels comfortable that nothing has broken. So lets say Google decides that the 60.0.3112.90 build of Chromium will be used to create the next PUBLIC release of Chrome.

That usually signals the other folks who use Chromium on Mac and Unix that the same build number 60.0.3112.90 is probably a good candidate for a public release on those platforms, so they compile and release it, and all platforms, Chromium and Chrome, are in sync. So, you can say that Google kind of drives the trains, when a new release of Chrome is issued, everybody kind of follows suit. That's why typically when you see Google issues a new release of Chrome, within a day or two, you will see the same version number come out on Chromium for Mac and Unix.

http://chromium.woolyss.com/ is safe, you should use it, you can also at that site sign up for RSS feeds that will ping you when a new stable or nightly is available.

Thanks again! You enlightened my knowledge! :-D

Hi Mcr! Perhaps you can enlighten my knowledge a little more... ;-)
I was searching for an old build running on a 32 bit Mac and found in various places including Freesmug that this should be 38.0.2125.122 (which is confirmed looking for the las 38.x here: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+refs)
Then I followed the advice here for finding an old build: https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium
The commit for said version should be 290379 but the nearer version (290368) once downloaded is 39.0.2128.0!
So I empirically searched and found that the last commit running on 32 bits is 305034 (41.0.2226.0)!!!
You'll probably say that these are dev and they were not supposed to become release, but I can't see the point of developing software which you know will not be released... :-o
And it's also pretty strange that 290368 being inferior to 290379, its version is 39 and not 38...

@Aargl
" I can't see the point of developing software which you know will not be released"

The Chromium project is in constant development, being open source, the code is available to anyone at any given time. In development, builds are done constantly, not just for release. Builds are done to make sure the current code can 1) compile, 2) so that people can test features and fixes. If you only do a build when you think you are going to release, then you may/will release into the public software that has not been tested thoroughly.

What constitutes a 'release' with regards to Chromium is grey area. I could compile the current code image today, put it on a server and call it a release. With respect to Mac, the guys at FreeSMUG compile and release a Mac build more or less along the lines of whenever Google decides to release an update to Chrome. This keeps the bug fixes that the public sees more or less in sync. So as far as what is the 'real' last 32-bit version, go with whatever FreeSMUG has issued. Even though there may be 'commits' that are more recent, a 'commit' doesn't necessarily mean that it was clean build, or 'better' than previous commits.

A commit just means a code image submitted to the archive, it may not even have a build made from it. You can't run a commit, it's just a snapshot of programming code; it has to be compiled into a build, which people can then actually execute. That's what FreeSMUG does, and as mentioned, usually only when Google issues a new release of Chrome. Don't assume that later commits or builds with higher numbers are always 'better' or more stable than earlier or lower numbered builds. Also a commit doesn't mean that it was actually compiled into a working build, do you know for sure that those later commits (compared to Freesmug) are actually available as a Mac build, and more importantly, WHO built them? If it wasn't FreeSMUG that did the build, then IMO you should think twice about using. There are a lot of 'alternative' Chromium builds out there by many groups (Iron, Canary). They don't always tell you what 'changes' they may have made with the code in their builds. I would stick with what FreeSMUG issued as the last 32bit build for Mac 38.0.2125.122.

Spudfry, I suspect you are trying to play H.264 encoded videos. Chromium will not play H.264 videos (out of the box). This is not a 'bug' per se, as the code is there, it's just not turned on.

The H.264 video format and codec is licensed and patented, it is not "free" to incorporate the code or codec without paying license fees. The governing body that administers the patent requires a licensing fee to be paid for incorporating the code into any application. Most of the big companies (Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc) pay the license fee, that is why Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, and Edge can support H.264/AVC. Remember, Chrome is Google's custom version built on top of Chromium, but the license fee Google pays only covers Chrome.

Chromium is the open source base for Chrome, and includes the code to play H.264, but it is 'turned off' in the 'normal' Chromium builds because if it was left enabled, and distributed, a licensing fee would be required which of course FreeSMUG and the open source community which contributes to Chromium, is not capable of supporting. If a developer complied their own Chromium build from source and enabled H.264, and distributed it, that developer would be required to pay the licensing fee.

On Firefox, Mozilla initially refused to pay the licensing fee in protest, and for the longest Firefox would not play H.264. Cisco stepped in, (yes, that Cisco), and built a H.264 extension for Firefox (works on Windows, Linux and MAc platforms), and announced to the world, that it would pay the licensing fee for 'everyone'. That's right, you have Cisco to thank for being able to play H.264 on Firefox. If you look In your Firefox add ons (about:addons), you should see "OpenH264 Video Codec provided by Cisco Systems, Inc.". that is what enables Firefox to play H.264 videos, courtesy of Cisco.

I don't foresee a change in the near future unless the governing body that owns the H.264 license and patents decides to eliminate licensing fees, which is doubtful as the revenue from the fees is SIGNIFICANT. I've read articles stating the revenue is tens of millions a year, perhaps even triple digit.

Thanks Mcr. I've installed the Pepper player from https://fpdownload.adobe.com/pub/flashplayer/latest/help/install_flash_player_osx_ppapi.dmg (Flash + Prefs Pane) and Chromium load it automatically (no terminal script needed).

Yes, the link you provided is correct, readers disregard my earlier link which is I think just downloads an installer but is not the actual install itself. . Also, for users who don't want the pref pane installed, you can run the installer in a macOS virtual machine or scratch boot partition, then just copy off the manifest and plugin files, copy into your working boot partition.

I think you can also ctrl+click on Flash Player pref pane and remove it.

With NPAPI Flash player installed (the default installer) you can open Flash Player preference pane, open "Update" tab and "Install now" PPAPI plug in.

How to install PPAPI Flash Player on Chromium: http://freesmug.wikidot.com/tutorial:ppapi-flash-on-chromium

What is the reason that pepper flash is no longer included?

Pevious version got Pepper Flash from Chrome, now it is no more available and there is no way to build Flash from source.
Try this:
https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/flash-player-chromium.html
not sure it works.

yup having issues too with flash player video.

If you want to fix the above mentioned https bug in the updater, find the extension in ~/Library/Application\ Support/Chromium/Default/Extensions/ccgjmadhdidfloacagcnnodbkedkjedg
Edit the file popup.js in the js folder. Use TextWrangler, BBedit or TextEdit.

Third line down, change
var website = "https://freesmug.org/chromium";
to
var website = "http://freesmug.org/chromium";

update checker has been update and is working fine. find 0.1.1.2 here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chromium-updater/ccgjmadhdidfloacagcnnodbkedkjedg

Thanks Prologos, I put big download buttons on FreeSMUG site pages.

to @Freesmug (Developer)
When I attempt to go Freesmug now, using Chromium 49.0.2623.112 (64-bit) I get this security certificate error:
Your connection is not private

Attackers might be trying to steal your information from freesmug.org (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards). NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID

This server could not prove that it is freesmug.org; its security certificate is from *.wikidot.com. This may be caused by a misconfiguration or an attacker intercepting your connection.

Proceed to freesmug.org (unsafe)

Firefox v45 also gives me this error now:
Your connection is not secure
The owner of freesmug.org has configured their website improperly. To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this website.
freesmug.org uses an invalid security certificate. The certificate is only valid for the following names: *.wikidot.com, wikidot.com Error code: SSL_ERROR_BAD_CERT_DOMAIN

As Prologos says, you guys really go out of your way to make it hard.

@Mcr
Sorry, freesmug.org site is hosted by www.wikidot.com with subdomain freesmug.wikidot.com.
Next Chromium Updater extension release will fix it.

give a URL of a movie that Chrome won't play out-of-the-box please

I wrote about Chromium, not Chrome. Chrome playing everything. Chromium can not play certain videos (H264 videos) Here you have a test, check yourself: http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/tests/video.html

I can't help wondering if the issue isn't an old, outdated operating system and possibly hardware limitations rather than the browser. I don't have the experience you report with a mid-2010 MBP nor a 2013 MBA running the current OS, both running 10.10.5. I use the 64-bit version of Chromium.

It runs fine on Yosemite, so it may be due to your running 10.6.8. Sorry, but newer software often requires newer hardware and operating system. There actually is an auto update available, and it's listed in the description above. See the "Chromium Updater from the Google Store" link above. Works well.

10.6.8 defaults to 32-bit mode operation. Chromium builds after version 38 have been 64-bit. Although Snow Leopard (10.6.8) is capable of running 64-bit apps in 32-bit mode, there is a significant performance penalty.

There were a few Mac models that were capable of running Snow Leopard in 64 bit mode, they had have a 64-bit EFI BIOS and a 64-bit capable CPU. Generally speaking if your system is capable of running Mavericks or Yosemite, has a Core 2 Duo chip or better (not Core Duo, Core TWO Duo) it's POSSIBLE that Snow Leopard may run in 64-bit mode. It doesn't happen though by itself, you have to force it to boot into 64-bit. Search the web for how. If you are able and choose to boot 64 bit mode, however, that will likely cause other problems with other apps and drivers. Honestly, I wouldn't go there; just trading a solution for other problems.

The last 32-bit version of Chromium was 38.0.2125.122. Of course the Pepper Flash that came with that will be seriously out dated. You may be able to pull the latest Pepper Flash from the latest Chrome or Chromium and plug it back in to the Chromium v 38

Oh if it's not the operating system police again. While you've been dicking around and troubleshooting your crappy five recent systems Cunamara, Beautiful Red and I have been enjoying getting productive work done on the best OS Apple ever released, Snow Leopard.

I'm sure God will bless and thank you for your prompt use of 64 bits when you arrive before the pearly gates.

Sourceforge.net uplad is down since 17 July, refer to FreeSMUG Chromium web page to get last build.

The reason multiple instances of "Chromium Helper" appear in Activity Monitor, is that each page that Chromium opens spawns its own Chromium Helper. This has been the preferred way of managing windows in web browsers for a while, since it allows each window to release its memory back to the operating system when a window is closed, and if a specific web page crashes, it doesn't take down the whole browser. Until relatively recently, Safari used the older method of grabbing more memory every time a new browser window was opened, and it didn't relinquish most or any of that window's memory back to the OS when a window was closed. This caused Safari to eat progressively more RAM the longer you left it running, even when you closed all of its windows, forcing you to quit from Safari every now and then to get back that memory.

Actually I guess another option is to use the latest version of Chrome until Chromium's Pepper Flash Player is updated, but I've found that the latest Chrome's (43.0.2357.134) ability to display Flash Player content varies, from full to not at all, displaying blank white web pages instead., at least on my Mid-2007 MacBook running OS 10.8.5.

I don't know the answer, but this is as far as I've got:
In Chromium, go to Settings > Show Advanced Settings > Privacy > Content Settings > Plugins > Manage Individual Plugins.
You'll see that Adobe Flash Player is shown as version 18.0.0.194, and that there's an option to, "Download Critical Security Update". By following that link, we're told that Chromium users have to update Pepper Flash manually. But, there're no instructions on that page.
If you go to Adobe's Flash webpage, https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/, and choose, "Need Flash Player for a different computer?" and follow the drop-down menus, you get the option of a 16MB PPAPI download for Opera and Chromium. I haven't yet installed it, though, as it sounds as though it'll be a system-wide plugin, and not just an update of Chromium's built-in Flash.
We may have to wait for Chromium to be updated.

@Ochre
By definition PPAPI plugins are sand boxed, i.e. not system wide. NAPI plugins are system wide.
http://blog.chromium.org/2012/08/the-road-to-safer-more-stable-and.html

@Jpwgibson
I understand your frustration (3 star review) but IMO your anger is misplaced. A new Flash update came out today. The issue is not with Chromium, it is Flash, which is being updated so often in order to correct KNOWN security issues that can be used to breach your system, simply by going to a site that automatically starts playing flash video before you can prevent it, so Chromium is just trying to protect you. Now, you can argue that Chromium with updated versions of Flash should be released more often, but it is hard to keep up with all the Flash updates. Understand, the only reason there is a Mac version of Chromium at all is because of a handful of dedicated developers who take the time to compile a Mac version; they do this on their own time, without being compensated. It's a lot to ask every time Flash puts out an update that they have to recompile a new Chromium build.

As of Monday, July 13, Mozilla announced that all versions of Firefox (not just Mac, ALL versions of Firefox) immediately would block Flash, all Flash, period, until Adobe fixed all known security holes, some of which have been known and open for years. Mozilla publicly went on record and asked Adobe to kill Flash once and for all and declare and end of life date.

Because of the pressure, Adobe released a new Flash version 18.0.0.209 Tuesday, July 14 , the very next day,, that Firefox is not blocking, that SUPPOSEDLY fixes all known security holes to date, so even 18.0.0.194 is already out of date.

http://gizmodo.com/firefox-now-blocks-flash-by-default-1717664482

If you haven't already done so (I assume you have) , try the websites you use without Flash, most sites now serve up HTML5/x.264. If they aren't, they should. A lot of sites CLAIM you need Flash to view, but if you access the site on an iOS device, they work fine, which means if they really wanted to, Flash is not required at all.

You are welcome to try installing your own Pepper Flash into Chromium, as noted by Ochre. It's a bit technical, but if there is no other option other than waiting for Chromium to be updated, you may want to consider it.

Peace.

"Google pulls listening software from Chromium"
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/25/google-pulls-listening-software-chromium

The harm is already done as I see it.

Yes, version 43.0.2357.81 is very unstable - including crashing while opening a second window of https://www.google.com; Crashing while installing extensions... Now, Google Chrome version 43.0.2357.81 (64-bit) is quite stable on my computer, so I'm rather puzzled as to why Chromium version 43.0.2357.81 isn't.

Huh. No instability at all- zero crashes- on my machine but I am running 10.10.3. The version (10.6.8) that you are running is really old now and that may be the problem. Hmm, you my want a 32-bit instead of 64-bit version of this and possibly all other applications, depending on the Mac you are running it on. Good luck!