A new initiative will fund and support open source Chromium projects

Google has it cooperated With the Linux Foundation to establish a new initiative called “Chromium-Based Browser Supporters.” Right now, most of the money that keeps Chromium, the open source web browser project that produced the code base that powers Chrome, comes from Google. The company says it has no intention of reducing its contribution in the future, but it also continues to “welcome others who come forward to invest more.”

Under the leadership of the Linux Foundation, the new initiative aims to fund the open development of Chromium projects and ensure proper support for contributions that can lead to technological advances. It also aims to provide a “neutral space” where developers, members of academia and big industry players can work together. Aside from Google, MicrosoftMeta and Opera have also pledged to support this initiative.

Google said it created the new program after hearing from “many companies and developers about how important the Chromium project is to their business” and how they wanted to give it more than just direct engineering support over the years. Chrome is just one of the browsers built on Chromium, with Microsoft Edge and Opera also based on the project’s code base, so their participation in the initiative doesn’t really come as a surprise.

It is worth noting that the Ministry of Justice called for Google breakup 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 selling Chrome will impact its contributions.