Why Google selling Chrome may not be as impactful as you think

Written on 02 May 2025

If you’ve been paying attention to the news recently, you would know that Google may have to sell the Chrome browser to a different company. This however, may not be as big of a deal for Google or the browser as you might expect.

Chromium and Chrome:

The biggest reason for why Google selling chrome might not be as important for them as you might expect is because Google Chrome isn’t really Google’s most important browser. It is more of a side project for them if anything.

What is Google Chrome? It is simply just Google’s free and open source Chromium browser with a few little added features that make it easier for the average user, than given a proprietary licence. Google’s most important browser is actually Chromium, not Chrome. That is not just because it powers Chrome but because it powers so many things other than Chrome, some that you might not even think about.

Let’s get started on the topic of web browsers. Chromium is the base for many other popular web browsers than just Chrome, such as Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, Samsung Internet, the default Android browser and many more. Apart from web browsers, Chromium is also used to power a great many apps on Android. In fact, a large percentage of Android apps are not really much more than a embedded web browser with locally stored HTML/CSS/JS which culminates in a working app. That isn’t just true for Android apps. A great many desktop apps on Windows, GNU/Linux, and macOS use Electron or CEF. Some popular apps include Visual Studio Code, Obsidian, Discord, and Steam. If you use a web app that has a desktop version (or vice versa) chances are very high it is using CEF or Electron, which is basically just a stripped-down Chromium browser.

Seeing how important Chromium is to Google, the question must be asked. What will the courts actually do? Will they force Google to sell Chrome, Chromium, or both? It’s not unheard of for the courts to give a seemingly good sounding but ultimately ineffective punishment, so we should take a look at the possibilities that could be generated by each scenario.

If Google is forced to sell Chrome, but not Chromium:

At the end of the day, Google Chrome isn’t a very large project. It would be pretty easy for a dozen developers to maintain it, as long as they don’t have to maintain Chromium itself. Most of the code would still be coming from Google, you would just have to maintain the cherry on top of the cake.

The big problem with this would be that as previously mentioned, Chrome isn’t really Google’s most important browser. If Chrome was bought by another company, Google would still end up contributing the vast majority of the code that will end up in future releases of Yahoo/OpenAI Chrome.

This doesn’t really sound like it would do much to hurt Google or break up the monopoly. In this case, Google would still have de facto control over browsers based on Chromium like Yahoo/OpenAI Chrome. Google could even start a new fork of Chromium that continues the legacy of Google Chrome.

If Google is forced to sell Chromium, but not Chrome:

I think this is flat out the least likely scenario to happen. Still, it is worth exploring. Even though Chromium is generally a more important project for Google, that does not mean that this would be an appropriate punishment either.

First of all, Chromium is free and open source software so even if another company acquired it, there is not much that could be done to stop Google’s employees from working on it unless Google themselves stops their employees from working on it during company hours.

In this case, since Google has already invested a large amount of their time and effort into the Chromium browser and since (in this scenario) they would still own Chrome, Google would still have a massive incentive to keep working on the Chromium browser and likely still be the primary contributor to Chromium.

If Google is forced to sell both Chromium and Chrome:

This would be the worst scenario for Google, but many of the problems discussed previously would still remain. Google would still likely fork Chromium for a new browser to continue Chrome’s legacy that they will push onto their users until the next antitrust lawsuit, and Google would still likely be the primary maintainer of Chromium at least for a while.

In this case, there is still not much the new owners of Chrome and Chromium could do to stop Google from working on Chromium as previously discussed. Whether Google forks Chromium for a new browser or not will largely determine how much incentive Google has continue working on Chromium.

Realistically, what I think would need to happen for this to work is both someone else (hopefully one that doesn’t specialise in proprietary software – but that’s unlikely) to buy Chromium, and heavily encourage non-Google employees to work on the browser and make it easier for those outside their own company to work on the Chromium browser. A large part on why the vast majority of commits to Chromium are made by Google is because Google has pretty strict requirements for anyone who isn’t a Google employee, effectively gatekeeping non-Google contributions to the browser.

Even the worst case scenario for Google won’t be as huge of a deal as most seem to make it out to be unless there are more people from outside Google and outside of the new owners of Chromium contributing to the browser, however in the short term after the purchase that does not seem particularly likely.

What will this mean for the open web anyways?

If you are expecting this to be a win for users or web developers, unfortunately it seems that the potential buyers of Chrome (and/or Chromium) have less than stellar track records themselves. The companies that have stepped up are largely other large corporations that make mostly or exclusively proprietary software, such as Yahoo and OpenAI.

While it would be nice to see an entity who makes free and open source software to step up to buy the browser and make it FOSS, however free and open source software organisations are unlikely to have the capital needed to buy the browser. This basically dooms Chrome and/or Chromium to see the same type of corporate enshtification that we see with Google right now, just with a different company behind it. It is likely that (with Chrome’s current market share) we will see another company try their shot at becoming a monopoly.

Conclusion:

In short, it’s unlikely that the sale of Chrome and/or Chromium will be as devastating to Google as many will make it out to be, nor will it bring a positive change to regular users or web developers. If just Chrome is sold, Google will still be contributing the vast majority of the code Chrome uses. If just Chromium is sold, Google will still likely be contributing vast amounts to Chromium because it’s their old open source project and Chrome still depends on it. If both are sold, Google will likely fork Chromium for their new browser without much stopping them from continuing to contribute to Chromium.