Chrome or Chromium?

Question

After installing Ubuntu 12.10 on my laptop, I went to download Chrome and got an error saying it was packaged badly or something, so I read up about it and found out about Chrome, and most people suggest that Ubuntu users should use Chromium over Chrome, although a lot is down to preference.

I read that Chromium is almost a 'beta' build for Chrome, but is quicker etc. as it has the newest features.

Is it still safe to use, for say banking etc.? Should I ignore the error and just get Chrome anyway?

What do you use?

Solution

I used Chrome for a while but switched to Chromium, mostly because I read that "Chromium is the open source web browser project from which Google Chrome draws its source code". I figured: if I can use open source, I will.

There aren't too many differences, although there are a few. This is what Wikipedia says Google adds to Chromium to make Chrome:

• Integrated Flash Player
• Built-in PDF viewer
• Built-in print preview and print system
• The Google name and a different logo
• An auto-update system called GoogleUpdate
• An opt-in option for users to send Google their usage statistics and crash reports
• RLZ tracking when Chrome is downloaded as part of marketing promotions and distribution partnerships

However, this is all fairly easily compensated and I use Chromium without any problems.

For more info, see Wikpedia and Google Code page.