Google developers have announced that they will prevent third-party Chromium browsers from using Google’s private APIs. The fact is that many of the APIs included in the Chromium code are intended exclusively for Google Chrome, however, it was found that third-party manufacturers use them successfully.
“In a recent audit, we discovered that some third-party Chromium-based browsers may use Google features, including Chrome Sync and Click to Call, which are only intended for use with Google products,” wrote Google Chrome CTO Johan Eisinger. “This means that a small subset of users could log into their Google account and save personal data via Chrome sync (eg bookmarks), not only for Google Chrome, but also for some third-party Chromium-based browsers.”
The specialist does not specify what kind of browsers that used Chrome Sync in question, but writes that starting from March 15, 2021, the company will restrict access of third-party Chromium browsers to private Chrome APIs.
Users who have already used Chrome Sync and other Chrome features in third-party browsers will still be able to access the synced data locally or in their Google account, depending on their sync settings.