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Chromium Extend v1.0

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@Shshtwy Shshtwy released this 16 Aug 02:22
· 9 commits to main since this release
v1.0
d9b5a4d

A de-Googled build of Chromium Desktop Android that keeps browser extensions and video
playback working.

Built from Chromium 153.0.7999.0 (commit 945b5115) with ten patches and five build flags.

Screenshots
Extension icons in the toolbar. Pinned extensions sit beside the address bar. The extensions menu on a phone. Per-site permissions and Pin to toolbar — upstream only offers this at tablet widths.
An extension's own window. Dark Reader running from the toolbar, exactly as on a desktop. Settings opens straight to Basics. No sign-in row, no Google services page.

What you get

🧩 Real browser extensions on your phone. Password managers, ad blockers, dark mode — the
same extensions you'd use on a desktop. Tap an extension's icon and its window opens properly,
and you can pin the ones you use most to the toolbar. Upstream only exposes this on tablet-width
layouts; here it works at phone widths too.

🔗 Links open in the browser, not in apps. Tapping a Reddit or YouTube result keeps you in
the browser instead of throwing you into their app mid-read. Phone numbers and email links still
open the right app.

📵 De-Googled. No background check-ins, and nothing about the forms you fill in gets sent off
for analysis. Google's built-in AI features are removed entirely, not just switched off.

🧹 No dead Google UI. Settings opens straight to what you can actually change — no sign-in
prompts, no Google services page, no password manager row that only says it stopped working.

🎬 Video still works. Ordinary video plays, and so does paid streaming — usually the first
thing to break in a privacy-focused browser.

🛡️ Still safe to browse. Protections against fake certificates and downgraded connections are
deliberately kept. Privacy here doesn't come at the cost of security.

🐛 Two crashes fixed. The stock build crashes when you open an extension's window, and again
if you tap sign-in.

Install

Requires an arm64 Android device (Android 10 / SDK 29 or newer).

adb install -r ChromiumExtend-v1.0-153.0.7999.0-arm64.apk

Or copy the APK to the device and open it. You'll need to allow installing from unknown sources.

This APK is signed with a local debug key, so it will not upgrade over a Play Store Chrome or
Chromium install — it installs as its own app (org.chromium.chrome).

What's removed

Ten patches: two crash fixes, the phone-layout extensions toolbar, and seven de-Googling
changes covering the variations seed fetch, network-time queries, Autofill form-structure
uploads, the Google Cloud Messaging push channel, the omnibox guards that unblock removing the
Google XR SDKs, and two settings cleanups.

Five build flags remove ML Kit and AICore (the on-device Gemini Nano bridge), the
Gemini-in-Chrome surface, the Reporting API, local service discovery and mDNS.

Worth knowing: a public Chromium build already sends no usage metrics, no URL-keyed metrics and
no crash reports, because upstream withholds those endpoints from forks. Translate is likewise
inert without a Google API key. Those needed no patching.

Known limitations

  • Search engine still defaults to Google. Changeable in Settings → Search engine. The
    shipped default is not yet patched.
  • Passkeys (WebAuthn) do not work. FIDO2_PRIVILEGED_API is restricted to Google-signed
    browsers, so any self-built Chromium is refused. Inherent to self-building, not caused by
    these patches.
  • Web Push is gone, as a consequence of removing the GCM channel.
  • Extension popups can be cropped. Extensions size their popup to content and may request a
    width wider than a phone screen.
  • The omnibox is squeezed when several extensions are pinned. Unpinning all but one works
    around it.
  • The New Tab Page and first-run screen still carry Google branding. The first-run screen
    also claims usage and crash data are sent to Google, which is untrue in this build.
  • Widevine is detected, but protected playback has not been exercised end to end.

Verified

Tested on a Pixel 10 Pro XL (arm64, Android 17) and an emulator of the same spec: no crashes
across a full session, extensions install and run with working popups and pinning, both original
crash reproductions are gone, and the shipped manifest contains zero ML Kit or AICore references.

License

The patches modify Chromium source and are subject to Chromium's BSD-3-Clause license.
Chromium is a trademark of Google LLC. This project is unaffiliated.

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