Google today announced that the code for Chrome for iOS is being added to its Chromium project and will be available through the company's open-source repository going forward.
According to Google, Chrome for iOS was previously kept separate from the rest of the Chromium project because of the "additional complexity" required for the platform, such as the need for the browser to be built using the WebKit rendering engine.
Google says the company's engineers have spent "a lot of time" over the last few years tweaking the Chrome for iOS code needed to upstream into Chromium, a process that was recently completed.
Today, that upstreaming is complete, and developers can compile the iOS version of Chromium like they can for other versions of Chromium. Development speed is also faster now that all of the tests for Chrome for iOS are available to the entire Chromium community and automatically run any time that code is checked in.
Designed as an alternative to Safari, Chrome for iOS is available for free to all users from the iOS App Store. [Direct Link]
Chrome users won't notice any obvious changes to the browser, but the shift to open source will make it easier for Google to release new versions of Chrome for iOS.
Top Rated Comments
No, this is marketing BS.
This, like Chromium isn't the complete Chrome App from Google, this is the "clean" part, the part where they add code to "better integrate with Google services" is kept closed.
That's rich...
1. Now that you mention Safari, WebKit is the world's #1 browser engine (iOS, Apple, every Chinese Android device, every Samsung, every PS4, etc. etc. etc.)
1. XNU is the world's second most used open-soruce Kernel
2. Swift is one of the strongest new languages right now and is Open Source, and by Apple
3. LLVM while not technically being Apple, their leaders are Apple employees dedicated to the project.
Apple - you're slowly being buried by the faster pace and openness of other companies in this space. Your Safari Technology Preview is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't go far enough. Pace is still too slow.
Not all Open Source software is GPL, and GPLv3 at that.
[doublepost=1485897041][/doublepost]None of Google projects is open source allowing others to participate. But Swift is an example of how an open source should be.