You can download Chrome for Linux, and you can download Chrome for Arm devices — but if you’ve got a computer running Linux on Arm, not so much! Now, Google says it’s finally bringing Chrome to ARM64 Linux machines in Q2 2026, following Chrome for Arm Macs in 2020 and Chrome for Windows on Arm in 2024.
I'm not going to try to sell you on Chrome.
I happen to prefer Chromium -- which Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Brave, and Vivaldi are (or in some versions have been) based on.
Chromium is more naturally private (it doesn't send analytics data to Google), and it's open source for those who want to customize.
On the other hand, Chromium can be a little more work -- it doesn't come with some media codecs, etc. pre-configured and the updates are manual rather than automatic.
There are also, I understand, some browser extensions that demand Chrome rather than Chromium to work, but the reverse is also true -- Chrome does the "walled-garden" thing to keep you from running extensions Google hasn't approved.
The reason I say "about time" is a market thing. Low-end Arm Linux may not be a huge market segment, but its occupants are people who tend to throw money at offerings within the segment. They're always buying special add-ons, accessories, etc. that will work with their machines where generic stuff from Best Buy might not. Why would Google leave money on the table by making it harder to identify and reach those users more directly through its proprietary browser?
I guess there are counter-arguments to be made. Is someone whose "daily driver" PC is a Raspberry Pi really that likely to want Chrome? In this day and age, running a low-end Linux PC is kind of an attitude indicator, and that attitude problably correlates strongly with anti-Google sentiments. Those machines, in addition to Chromium, can also run Brave, Vivaldi, Firefox, etc. So maybe it really is an afterthought kind of thing.
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