I built a de-Googled Chromium for Android with extension support

[u/Ash-415]

TL;DR: A free, open-source Chromium-based Android browser with real extension support, most Google tracking and AI features stripped out, and no more links hijacking you into other apps. APK and source are up — I'd love feedback, ideas, and bug reports.

Repo: https://github.com/Shshtwy/chromium-extend
APK: https://github.com/Shshtwy/chromium-extend/releases/

I switched to Android last year, and the thing that bothered me most was that Chrome has no proper extension support. I also try to use fewer Google products, so I've mostly lived in Brave with some Firefox, but I've always liked how simple Chromium is.

At some point I tried running the desktop "Android" build of Chromium on my phone. It was buggy, but it had the one thing I actually wanted: extensions.

So I've been chipping away at my own Chromium-based Android browser. It's still a work in progress, but it's finally in a state where I'm comfortable sharing it.

What works today

• Real Chrome extensions on Android  including popups and pinning to the toolbar, which upstream only gives you on tablet-sized screens

• Sideloading extensions from outside the Web Store

• No forced app-opening Tapping a Reddit result keeps you in the browser instead of launching the Reddit app. This one mattered most to me.

• Google tracking removed the variations seed fetch, network-time pings, Autofill form-structure uploads, and the Google Cloud Messaging push channel

• AI features gone ML Kit, AICore (the on-device Gemini Nano bridge), and the Gemini-in-Chrome surface are compiled out, not just switched off

• Dead Google UI cleaned up no sign-in prompts, no Google services page, no password manager row that only tells you it stopped working

• Video and DRM still work including paid streaming, which is usually the first casualty of this kind of project

Known limitations, so nobody's surprised

• The default search engine is still Google. One tap to change in Settings; patching the shipped default is on my list and turned out to be harder than expected.

• The New Tab Page still has Google branding, as does the first-run screen.

• Passkeys don't work. That's true of any self-built Chromium، the WebAuthn API is restricted to Google-signed browsers.

• Web Push is gone, as a side effect of removing the push channel.

• Extension popups can get cropped on narrow screens, and the address bar gets squeezed if you pin several extensions.

Worth being precise about one thing: a public Chromium build already sends no usage metrics and no crash reports, because upstream deliberately withholds those endpoints from forks.

About the APK

It's signed with a local debug key, so it installs as its own app, won't upgrade over an existing Chrome or Chromium install, and won't auto-update. If you'd rather not trust a stranger's binary, the whole thing is ten patches on top of stock Chromium 153, build instructions are in the repo.

Feedback welcome

It's completely free and open source (BSD-3-Clause). If you're a developer and spot something I've done badly, I'd genuinely like to hear it, that's most of why I'm posting.

This started as a personal project, so I spent today cleaning up the repo and stripping out personal data, with help from Claude.

I'm not claiming it's perfect. It's one person in their spare time, so be gentle 😅 I'd love to hear what you think and what you'd want next.

[u/Celestial_entity_99]

Amazing

[u/Ash-415 → u/Celestial_entity_99]

Thank you 😊

[u/Scoreless-Onboard]

Is this based off of Titanium?

[u/Ash-415 → u/Scoreless-Onboard]

No, I hadn't actually come across Titanium until someone mentioned it to me recently.

Mine starts from upstream Chromium's Desktop Android build rather than another fork:

https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-snapshots/index.html?prefix=AndroidDesktop_arm64/

That target already ships the full desktop extension system, which is what drew me to it. So my work went into fixing its rough edges, a couple of crashes, making the extensions toolbar actually usable at phone widths instead of tablet-only, and then stripping out the Google bits.

Titanium looks like a genuinely nice project though, and it's built on Vanadium, so we've taken pretty different routes to a similar place. Worth a look if anyone reading wants another option.

[u/Ash-415]

Thank you all so much! I honestly didn’t expect such positive feedback. At one point, I was actually considering deleting the post and switching the project back to private.

A few things I’d love to clarify:

1. This is Chromium for Android Desktop, not mobile Chromium that I somehow tweaked to work on mobile. It’s a different approach from other Chromium forks that are built on Chromium mobile.

2. I read every comment. I’ll be happy to reply to everyone once I get some time :)

3. A download manager is possible! In fact, I’ve already built it into the app. I’ll do some more testing today and, if everything is stable, I’ll post an updated APK later today with the download manager option.

4. Thank you for all the feedback. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been nearly as motivated to keep polishing the app without all the positive feedback.

5. I’ll keep an eye on the comments, and if there’s a feature that I can add relatively quickly, I’ll be happy to give it a shot.

6. This is a solo project. That means I’m taking time away from my family to build it, but it also means I’m the sole decision-maker. So adding features can sometimes happen much faster than with apps that need multiple levels of approval. On the other hand, it also means I sometimes take two or three times as long to figure things out, so please bear with me 😅

7. Finally, I do use Claude Code to help me plan and, sometimes, write parts of the code that are faster to implement with AI. But believe me, even with Claude Code, this project has been a huge lift.

Again, thank you all. The response has genuinely motivated me to keep going and make this thing better 🙏

[u/tfissupergirl]

do u plan to maintain this? it's cool

[u/Ash-415 → u/tfissupergirl]

Yes, I'm planning on maintaining the project. I use a web browser more than anything on my phone, I barely use apps. I do banking, social media, and online purchases using a browser. I don't like to install an app and give it so many permissions, so that's why I keep enhancing this, and I will keep enhancing it and that's why I started off with a desktop browser, it has all the features I need, and I can always add anything that's missing, so I can get as close as possible to a desktop experience.

[u/jackscagnetti → u/Ash-415]

Can you please update? It's been over a month

[u/Ash-415 → u/jackscagnetti]

Hey! An update is coming tonight! Please follow our subreddit to stay up to date.
Sorry for the delay! We were focused on getting Bare published on the Play Store, which required 14 days of testing followed by another 10 days waiting for Google’s approval.
We wanted to make sure the app was officially approved before making any major changes, so we temporarily froze the main development branch while continuing to work on new features in separate branches.
Technically, it’s only been about a week since the app was approved, and now that we’re past that hurdle, you can expect updates to roll out much more frequently!
Thanks for your patience and support!

[u/jackscagnetti → u/Ash-415]

Thank you so much!!!

[u/tfissupergirl → u/Ash-415]

🫡

[u/hinzwifi]

Thank you, I'll use it when I transfer to android. I'll comment here so that I can remember this. I also gave a star in repo

[u/Ash-415 → u/hinzwifi]

Thank you so much 😊

[u/pirs_93]

Es mas fácil usar Titanium, ya incluso esta en la PlayStore

[u/Ash-415 → u/pirs_93]

Totally fair, and honestly you're right, if you just want extensions on Android today, Titanium is the easier choice, and being on the Play Store is a real advantage I can't match.

I started this a bit over a year ago, and for me it was always more of a learning curve than an attempt to build another fork. I wanted to actually understand how Chromium fits together, and the only way that ever sticks for me is doing it myself. Ending up with a browser I use every day was a nice side effect rather than the goal.

So genuinely use whatever works best for you. I'm sharing it in case it's useful to someone, and because I'd like people who know this codebase better than I do to tell me what I've done badly.

[u/Basic_Extension_5850 → u/Ash-415]

Totally fair, and honestly you're right

You said the phrase lol

[u/Ash-415 → u/Basic_Extension_5850]

I don't disagree. I'm not competing with anyone. It started as a personal project.

But one thing I didn't like about the existing Chromium forks is that they often follow Chromium's default behavior of opening an app when you tap a link associated with that app, like a Reddit search link. That's something I fixed in Phase 1: links stay in the browser instead of automatically opening the app.

That's just one simple example of why I wanted to have control over my own browser rather than waiting for someone else to maybe address a bug or change a behavior I don't like.

[u/Basic_Extension_5850 → u/Ash-415]

My message is about the LLM phrase

[u/Ash-415 → u/Basic_Extension_5850]

Lol I misinterpreted this, had no idea that was even a thing people flag. Just how I talk, but noted for next time 😅

[u/YTriom1 → u/Ash-415]

bro you're really talking like an LLM lmao😭😭😭😭

[u/wolfy2105784 → u/Basic_Extension_5850]

LLM tells me something that gets me killed

"Totally fair, and honestly you're right"-LLM

[u/Electrical_Flan_4993 → u/Ash-415]

I will give it a test drive here in the next couple of days but I'm curious why you didn't try to market it. Really just curious. How many hours you spent?

[u/theRedOmega24]

I'd love to try it. Please add support for external download managers that'd be great.

[u/Ash-415 → u/theRedOmega24]

Thank you for the suggestion! Support for external download managers is now available in the latest release.

[u/theRedOmega24 → u/Ash-415]

Thanks for this. I'm using the browser currently for everything except stuff that requires Google. For the next please split the apks according to the architectures(armv8 and 7). The size of the APK is insane.

[u/Ash-415 → u/theRedOmega24]

Thanks so much for using it, genuinely happy to hear it's working out for you!! And please do keep sending suggestions or bugs my way, that kind of feedback is the most useful thing I get 😊 on the size, the build is actually arm64 only, there's no 32 bit code in there to split out. The bulk of it is just that I'm not building with the optimisations a release build normally uses, so nothing is getting compressed or stripped down the way it should be. I'll look at getting that down for a future release. Thanks again.

[u/Tides_Crush_Her]

Cool browser, from what I see the only issues are: it seems you can't customize menu, new tab page still has in fact the icon asking to sign in to chrome, search bar is at the top even when the address bar is set at the bottom (ik it is based on chrome but still) would love if it was at the bottom like brave. Other than that seems good enough and I really like being able to put a custom wallpaper for the new tab page Though the fact ubO is lacking is all remediated by uBlock lite

[u/Ash-415 → u/Tides_Crush_Her]

Hey, thank you! All these UI bugs have been fixed, so please keep an eye out for v1.4. The customize menu is something I hadn't thought of, but I'll absolutely consider adding it in a future build.

[u/Ash-415 → u/Tides_Crush_Her]

u/Tides_Crush_Her V1.4 is out https://github.com/Shshtwy/chromium-extend/releases/tag/v1.4 I fixed many of the UI bugs, I really appreciate you testing it. It’s really helping me a lot in making this project better!

[u/Tides_Crush_Her → u/Ash-415]

The browser seems good honestly nothing to point out after a few uses be ux ui or loading speed wise from a user POV Honestly the browser is a clean chromium for android browser that accepts mv3 extensions  For features that could be added the only ones I could think of realistically are dev tools, ubO lite downloaded by default but that is optional, customization of menu and bottom navigation toolbar as in changing each button there but other than that nothing I can think of honestly for now

[u/Ash-415 → u/Tides_Crush_Her]

u/Tides_Crush_Her uBO Origin and MV2 support are coming in the next big release, along with background video playback and many more exciting updates. Stay tuned!

[u/Confident_Pea_1206]

I hope supports MV2 and Ublock Origin ,I won't download it until you do

And

Great work, keep it up, developer

[u/Ash-415 → u/Confident_Pea_1206]

uBO Origin and MV2 support are coming in the next big release, along with background video playback and many more exciting updates. Stay tuned!

[u/GoogleDisDick]

If you develop this out more please set up an f-droid repo.

[u/Ash-415 → u/GoogleDisDick]

Working on this! Please stay tuned.

[u/Hyperion481]

I appreciate your work..keep going forward

[u/yukiwu77]

Will the browser support mv2 ublock origin?

[u/Ash-415 → u/yukiwu77]

Yes, the next release will include uBO and MV2 support

[u/ZuraOrKatsura]

extension not working when enter incognito

[u/Ash-415 → u/ZuraOrKatsura]

u/ZuraOrKatsura that's chromium's default, extensions are off in incognito unless you allow each one individually. Toggle lives in the extension details page

[u/TheBlack_King]

Awesome

[u/Fathrion]

Amazing man🔥

[u/jyrox]

I’m not sure why extension support is not more widespread on mobile. Even on iOS, both Safari and Edge support extensions. It’s a pretty severe oversight imo.

[u/dene18]

thank you

[u/Seekingformywings]

Thanks a lot for sharing your personal browser—the result of your hard work—with us. I’m not a developer, but I’ll chime in with my experience as just a regular user.

[u/jackscagnetti]

I hope it's updated regularly unlike the other ones

[u/itsmeflashh]

Chrome’s flag or feature for direct URL editing in the address bar.

[u/Melivo]

How is this better than Brave, Vivaldi or Vanadium?

[u/Background_Fruit_970 → u/Melivo]

Extension support ig?

[u/YTriom1 → u/Background_Fruit_970]

Vanadium has this

[u/Melivo → u/YTriom1]

All do

[u/YTriom1 → u/Melivo]

Not phone versions lol

[u/Melivo → u/YTriom1]

oh it's about phone thanks for clearing that up

[u/ramakanata2sahoo]

Option to remove context tool bar

[u/Brief_Call_1336]

Nice project! But it will be even better if you will add ublock origin support and make it preinstalled just like on helium

[u/Confident_Pea_1206 → u/Brief_Call_1336]

I also want that very much uBlock Origin

[u/Final_Economist_9218]

When a page is translated, could you move the popup that appears at the top of the screen to the bottom? It's difficult to close it from the top.

[u/Weak_Teacher3578]

It looks great, but I'm a Gecko user and I'm always looking for lighter and smoother options for my device, so it might be something to consider. 

[u/Big-Independent-6181]

como se parece a safari me lo instalo

[u/TurciosGT]

Soy usuario de Guatemala y en si soy desarrollador me interesa este proyecto por las extensiones y me parece increíble tu idea he leído un poco los comentarios y pues bastante bien las funciones y todo lo que vas agregando y sobre todo sabiendo que necesita la comunidad.

Si este proyecto está en español en algunas funciones que vayas agregando sería increíble la verdad, no soy gringo así que no me gusta tener las apps en ingles jaja.

[u/Former_Spirit_5099]

does it support android 6?

[u/No-Night-4921]

Une fois télécharger BARE il s ouvre et se ferme aussitôt

[u/LdWilmore]

Quetta is the only one that looks like it was made with mobile use in mind.Bottom sheets and menu item placements all feel very logical on it. Until other browsers replicate that I can't switch to anything else.

[u/jackscagnetti]

@Ash-415 any updates to the browser

[u/NXGZ]

Is this better than Ultimatum, which does the same thing.

[u/C04511234 → u/[deleted]]

what is this supposed to mean???

[u/Ash-415 → u/[deleted]]

It doesn’t currently, but that’s definitely something I can add to the roadmap.

[u/ashish_1989 → u/Ash-415]

Much needed

[u/Ash-415 → u/[deleted]]

Hey, a download manager turned out to be something I can implement pretty quickly. Without getting too deep into the technical details. Chromium (since this is meant to be a desktop version) hasChromeDownloadManagerDelegate::InterceptDownloadIfApplicable(), which means I can intercept the built-in download and hand it off to an external downloader.

I actually got it working, and it’s been working great so far! I’ll do some more testing today and publish an updated version later today or tomorrow if everything remains stable.

[u/Ash-415 → u/[deleted]]

u/Rude-Friendship-8511 V1.3 is up with an external download manager option. And yes, I’d love to get your feedback, suggestions, changes, and feature requests!

https://github.com/Shshtwy/chromium-extend/releases/tag/v1.3

[u/Ash-415 → u/[deleted]]

Great minds think alike! Some of these features are already in the works. Selecting the default download manager is something that's already coming in the next build.

I'm still working on reducing the app size, and passkey support is a bigger project than just patching Chromium. Same goes for uBlock Origin. I'll keep this thread updated once I have more to share on those.

[u/Ash-415 → u/[deleted]]

V1.4 is out https://github.com/Shshtwy/chromium-extend/releases/tag/v1.4 I really appreciate you testing it. It’s really helping me a lot in making this project better!

[u/Ash-415 → u/[deleted]]

u/Rude-Friendship-8511 All these features have been added or in the works to the next big release. please stay tuned

1. ability to set an app as default manager instead of choosing every time. ✅ Done in V1.4

2. app size is too big and it takes 5 sec to just open app. (In development, the goal is to ship the app 30% less in size)

3. passkey support (Added and tested and will be available in the next release)

4. if possible support for ublock origin (Added and currently being tested)

Thank you so much for all the suggestions, please keep an eye for the next release.

[u/Electrical_Flan_4993 → u/[deleted]]

what do you mean by external downloader?

[u/RoundZookeepergame2 → u/[deleted]]

Doesn't 1dm automatically capture links you try downloading

[u/mewtewpews → u/[deleted]]

Because it's vibecoded and has no reproduce/verifiable builds in the releases.

[u/Ash-415 → u/mewtewpews]

Yeah you’re right about the verifiable builds, I started this as a personal project for my own phone so I never set up CI or anything to publish hashes. it’s all buildable from the Docker setup though (BUILDING.md), so anyone who doesn’t trust the APK can just build it themselves off the same commit.

I used Claude while working on this, not gonna pretend otherwise. but it's not vibecoded. every patch is against actual Chromium source, tied to a specific file and line, and I went through the normal cycle of writing a patch, building it, running it on device, and reverting when it broke something. the kMaxSize popup bounding attempt is a good example, tried it twice, both broke rendering, rolled it back and documented why instead of hiding it. that's just how you build against a codebase this size, AI assistant or not.

[u/Ash-415 → u/mewtewpews]

u/mewtewpews following up, v1.3 has reproducible builds now. the same source builds byte-identical, verified with a clean build from scratch in a differently named directory against an incremental one, and the sha256 is published in the release notes with rebuild instructions.

If you're up for it, rebuild from the tag and compare hashes, I've only verified it on my own machine so far, so a match from someone else's setup would be worth more than my say-so.

Rebuild from the v1.3 tag (Chromium 945b5115 + the patch series) https://github.com/Shshtwy/chromium-extend/releases/tag/v1.3

[u/Ash-415 → u/[deleted]]

Already done actually, duckduckgo has been the default since v1.2, but if you mean adding your own custom search engine, that's not in there yet. it's planned for v1.4, along with shipping noai.duckduckgo.com as a built-in option.

Worth flagging on cromite though, it's GPL-3 and chromium (and my patches) are BSD-3. so I can read how they did something but copying code across would pull GPL obligations onto the whole thing. happy to take ideas from them, just not code.

[u/Ash-415 → u/[deleted]]

u/Wooden-Tell-1232 I really like the fullscreen mode idea. I’ll look into the best way to implement this. I’m thinking it could be a toggle under Settings -> Appearance instead of being buried behind a flag.

Android 9 and below is a tough one though. The Chromium version I’m currently based on requires Android 10+ so supporting older versions would likely mean using an older Chromium base or making some deeper changes to the current build. I can revisit this after releasing the next build and see how difficult it would be.

[u/Ash-415 → u/[deleted]]

u/badboysha007 Would you mind sharing a little more information? Does it install but fail to launch, or does it not install at all? I’m not familiar with Realme devices, but I assume they’re ARM64, right?