Thorium is a high-performance, privacy-focused web browser built as a fork of Chromium. It is designed to deliver significantly faster browsing speeds through aggressive compiler optimizations such as SSE4.2 and AVX. These low-level enhancements allow Thorium to outperform standard Chrome and Chromium builds in responsiveness and efficiency. The browser removes much of Google’s built-in bloat to create a leaner browsing experience. Thorium also includes additional privacy features that reduce tracking and unnecessary background activity. Bug fixes and compatibility patches improve stability across Linux and other supported platforms. Overall, Thorium balances speed, privacy, and modern web compatibility in a familiar Chromium-based browser.
Features
- Always built with the latest stable version of Chromium
- Intended to behave like and have the featureset of Google Chrome, with differences/patches/enhancements
- Includes Widevine, All Codecs, Chrome Plugins, as well as thinLTO, CFlag, LDFlag, LLVM Loop, and PGO compiler optimizations
- It is built with SSE4, AVX, and AES, so it won't launch on CPU's below 2nd gen Core or AMD FX, but benefits from Advanced Vector EXtensions. If your CPU lacks AVX, you can use builds from the Thorium SSE3 repo
- Various compiler flags that improve performance and target AVX CPU's
- Experimental MPEG-DASH support
- HEVC/H.265 support on Linux and Windows
- JPEG XL Image File Format turned on by default
- GTK auto dark mode patch
- Widevine CDM Patch for Linux
- Prefetch settings updated to respect privacy