A new initiative will fund and support Chromium open source projects

Google has united with the Linux Foundation to create a new initiative called “Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers”. Currently, most of the money that supports Chromium, the open source web browser project that created the code base that powers Chrome, comes from Google. The company says it has no intention of reducing its contribution going forward, but also continues to “welcome others stepping up to invest more.”

Led by the Linux Foundation, the new initiative aims to fund the open development of Chromium projects and provide appropriate support for contributions that could lead to technological advances. It also aims to provide a “neutral space” where developers, members of academia and major industry players can work together. Besides Google, MicrosoftMeta and Opera have also pledged their support for the initiative.

Google said it created the new program after hearing from “many companies and developers how critical the Chromium project is to their work” and how they would like to provide it with more than direct engineering support over the years. Chrome is just one of the browsers built on Chromium — Microsoft’s Edge and Opera are also based on the project’s codebase, so their participation in the initiative isn’t really a surprise.

It is worth noting that the Ministry of Justice called for the collapse of Google last year, including the sale of the Chrome web browser. Google said in its announcement that it intends to continue supporting the Chromium project, but only time will tell if the sale of Chrome will affect its contributions.