It's open source. It's developed by a community, of which Google is one of them. Microsoft also contributes, and many independent developers or devs from other companies do as well. The thing about Open Source is any programmer can inspect the code and ensure that there isn't nefarious aspects to it. Any programmer can also "fork" the project if the management of the project goes awry. So you can basically download the source code, remove any bad parts, and start your own collaboration with other programmers. That's why Chromium has stayed clean, while Chrome itself is Google-fied and a privacy nightmare.
How is it not Google free?
Because Chromium is Google developed
It's open source. It's developed by a community, of which Google is one of them. Microsoft also contributes, and many independent developers or devs from other companies do as well. The thing about Open Source is any programmer can inspect the code and ensure that there isn't nefarious aspects to it. Any programmer can also "fork" the project if the management of the project goes awry. So you can basically download the source code, remove any bad parts, and start your own collaboration with other programmers. That's why Chromium has stayed clean, while Chrome itself is Google-fied and a privacy nightmare.
Thanks for the clarification!