We stand with Ukraine to help keep people safe. Join us
All Apps
Best AppsReviewsComparisonsHow-To
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission
HomeBrowsingungoogled-chromium

ungoogled-chromium for Mac

A lightweight approach to removing Google web service dependency.

Free
In English
Version 115.0.5790.170
3.3
Based on 3 user rates

ungoogled-chromium overview

Without signing in to a Google Account, Chromium does pretty well in terms of security and privacy. However, Chromium still has some dependency on Google web services and binaries. In addition, Google designed Chromium to be easy and intuitive for users, which means they compromise on transparency and control of internal operations.

ungoogled-chromium addresses these issues in the following ways:

  • Remove all remaining background requests to any web services while building and running the browser
  • Remove all code specific to Google web services
  • Remove all uses of pre-made binaries from the source code, and replace them with user-provided alternatives when possible.
  • Disable features that inhibit control and transparency, and add or modify features that promote them (these changes will almost always require manual activation or enabling).

These features are implemented as configuration flags, patches, and custom scripts

Features:

These are the core features introduced by ungoogled-chromium

  • Replace many web domains in the source code with non-existent alternatives ending in qjz9zk (known as domain substitution; see docs/design.md for details)
  • Strip binaries from the source code (known as binary pruning; see docs/design.md for details)
  • Disable functionality specific to Google domains (e.g. Google Host Detector, Google URL Tracker, Google Cloud Messaging, Google Hotwording, etc.)
    • This includes disabling Safe Browsing. Consult the FAQ for the rationale.
  • Add many new command-line switches and chrome://flags entries to configure disabled-by-default features. See docs/flags.md for the exhaustive list.
Enhancing Features:

These are the non-essential features introduced by ungoogled-chromium.

  • Use HTTPS by default when a URL scheme is not provided (e.g. Omnibox, bookmarks, command-line)
  • Add Suggestions URL text field in the search engine editor (chrome://settings/searchEngines) for customizing search engine suggestions.
  • Add more URL schemes allowed to save page schemes.
  • Add Omnibox search provider "No Search" to allow disabling of searching
  • Add a custom cross-platform build configuration and packaging wrapper for Chromium. It currently supports many Linux distributions, macOS, and Windows. (See docs/design.md for details on the system.)
  • Force all pop-ups into tabs
  • Disable automatic formatting of URLs in Omnibox (e.g. stripping http://, hiding certain parameters)
  • Disable intranet redirect detector (extraneous DNS requests)
    • This breaks captive portal detection, but captive portals still work.
  • (Iridium Browser feature change) Prevent URLs with the trk: scheme from connecting to the Internet
    • Also prevents any URLs with the top-level domain qjz9zk (as used in domain substitution) from attempting a connection
  • (Iridium and Inox feature change) Prevent pinging of IPv6 address when detecting the availability of IPv6. See the --set-ipv6-probe-false flag above to adjust the behavior instead.

What’s new in version 115.0.5790.170

  • Release notes were unavailable when this listing was updated.

ungoogled-chromium for Mac

Free
In English
Version 115.0.5790.170

What users say about ungoogled-chromium

Try our new feature and write a detailed review about ungoogled-chromium

Write your thoughts in our old-fashioned comment

MacUpdate Comment Policy. We strongly recommend leaving comments, however comments with abusive words, bullying, personal attacks of any type will be moderated.
3.3

(7 Reviews of ungoogled-chromium)

  • Comments

  • User Ratings

Michael-Vilain
Michael-Vilain
Aug 8 2023
110.0.5481.177
0.0
Aug 8 2023
0.0
Version: 110.0.5481.177
This points to an out of date repo. The current version is 115. https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-macos is the actual repo. This should point to this repo instead of the current one.
Saneman1
Saneman1
Aug 8 2023
110.0.5481.100
5.0
Aug 8 2023
5.0
Version: 110.0.5481.100
There's a newer version: 110.0.5481.177.
ERNEST UNGUREANU
ERNEST UNGUREANU
Aug 6 2022
104.0.5112.81
0.0
Aug 6 2022
0.0
Version: 104.0.5112.81
Why this obsession, this relentlessness, against a company that has been part of each of us for years ? Google is not perfect (in reality, perfection is not even recommendable), but I very much doubt that applications without Google can operate properly.
476429
476429
Jan 22 2022
97.0.4692.71
4.0
Jan 22 2022
4.0
Version: 97.0.4692.71
I tested the latest version (97.0.4692.71), and it is working well on macOS 10.15. I have not encountered any problems. The Brave browser has a github page detailing their Chromium degoogling work, and at the bottom it says: "We have an issue captured for pulling in relevant patches from the ungoogled-chromium project. The ungoogled-chromium project similarly has an issue captured where they pull in patches from Brave." So it looks like they will be benefiting from each others' work. They both have the same goal of degoogling Chromium as much as possible.
robsta
robsta
Oct 12 2021
94.0.4606.81
0.0
Oct 12 2021
0.0
Version: 94.0.4606.81
Something is amiss here...?? Current installer says it needs Big Sur to install this version....could the download link be pointed to the wrong file?
Saneman1
Saneman1
Oct 27 2023
115.0.5790.170
5.0
Oct 27 2023
5.0
Version: 115.0.5790.170
476429
476429
Feb 19 2022
98.0.4758.102
4.0
Feb 19 2022
4.0
Version: 98.0.4758.102
orsobou4
orsobou4
Jul 8 2020
1.0
Jul 8 2020
1.0
Version: null