Hi guys. I currently use Chromium now and are really happy with the way it works. I have some concerns about the privacy and Google stats, though. I know about the “bad stuff” Chrome does to users’ data, but I wonder if Chromium does the same too? Or are the non-privacy features removed, like in Iron?
If you’re running the Google Chrome build for windows then you should be ok. I believe they removed the offending parts. If you’re running the Chromium builds for Linux I think it still has some of the features (reporting back anonymous stats, etc.)
Unfortunately, I’m running Chromium on Linux. Is there any way to know for sure if this reporting process is running in the background, or patches I can apply to the source code before building?
(Right now I use 3.0.198.0 (22948))
You can always turn on chromium and wireshark and check the traffic:) From what i’ve heard linux version has less features that send data outside the world. There is no autoupdater, it will be distro maintainers responsibility. Don’t get paranoid, if it would be discovered that chrome/chromium sends some private data like passwords then this would be the shortest living browser ever 
People got paranoid because they didn’t understand the autosuggestion feature and thought that chrome is sending their data to google.
I am using chromium right now from here at version 3.0.201 (it’s said it is highly unstable but i have yet to confirm that 
I read Chrome documentation and Chromium devs’ blog and their answers to privacy questions. I know they mean to enhance the users’ experience, but I am still uncomfortable with an app sending my browser data to some place where I don’t know what is done to them.
That’s why I always disable features like ‘anonymous stats’ etc.
Well, to be honest, unless something is sent through a SSL connection then i am perfectly fine with that otherwise no one can check what is being sent. I don’t mind sending anonymous stats since i don’t have anything i’d care about in my browser Additionally there is AppArmor in openSUSE and you could train it so that chromium reads and writes to it’s own directory, can’t read other directories and the rest (system directories i don’t care since they don’t contain any sensitive data).
As long as they send my passwords encrypted to google i am happy