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Chromium

Chromium is a web browser that aims to build a safer, faster, and more stable internet browsing experience. It includes various components like a main browser, headless shell, driver for automation, and supporting packages.

Description

Chromium provides the web browser component from Google, designed for secure and efficient web browsing. In Kali Linux, it is packaged with additional tools like chromium-driver for Selenium WebDriver automation, chromium-headless-shell for GUI-less operations such as PDF generation, and chromium-sandbox for setuid security sandboxing. These components support penetration testing and web analysis tasks requiring browser interactions.

Use cases include proxy configuration for traffic interception, incognito mode for anonymous browsing, temporary profiles to avoid persistence, and remote extension enabling for custom testing tools. The chromedriver enables automated browser control for scripting web vulnerability scans or interaction simulations.

Supporting packages like chromium-common provide shared resources, chromium-l10n offers language packs, and chromium-shell delivers a minimal UI version, enhancing flexibility in diverse testing environments.

How It Works

Chromium operates as a GTK+ application supporting command-line flags for profile management, proxy handling (HTTP/SOCKS4/SOCKS5 with PAC autoconfig), password stores (basic, GNOME keyring, KWallet), and debugging via GDB. It uses separate user data directories for multiple instances, with sandboxing via setuid for security. Chromedriver acts as a bridge to Selenium for automated WebDriver control, listening on ports with configurable logging. Headless mode renders without GUI, equivalent to legacy --headless=old.

Installation

bash
sudo apt install chromium

Flags

-h|--helpShow help output.
-g|--debugStart a debugging session within /usr/bin/gdb.
--temp-profileUse a throw-away/temporary profile for this session.
--enable-remote-extensionsAllow installation and updates of remote extensions.
--user-data-dir=DIRSpecifies the directory that user data is kept in.
--incognitoOpen in incognito mode.
--new-windowIf PATH or URL is given, open it in a new window.
--proxy-server=host:portSpecify the HTTP/SOCKS4/SOCKS5 proxy server to use for requests.
--no-proxy-serverDisables the proxy server.
--proxy-auto-detectAutodetect proxy configuration.
--proxy-pac-url=URLSpecify proxy autoconfiguration URL.
--password-store=<basic|gnome|kwallet>Set the password store to use.
--versionShow version information.

Examples

Display the help screen for Chromium.
chromium -h
Start Chromium within GDB for debugging.
chromium -g
Start Chromium with a new temporary profile.
chromium --temp-profile
Start Chromium allowing remote extensions.
chromium --enable-remote-extensions
Open Chromium in incognito mode.
chromium --incognito
Use SOCKS5 proxy foobar:66 for all URLs.
chromium --proxy-server=socks5://foobar:66
Use different proxies for HTTPS and HTTP URLs.
chromium --proxy-server="https=proxy1:80;http=socks4://baz:1080"
Start chromedriver listening on port 9515.
chromedriver --port=9515
Updated 2026-04-16kali.org ↗