Comment by cassianoleal

Arguably, Chromium is more important to Google than Chrome is.

By controlling the engine, they have de facto control over the standards.

By keeping Chromium open, they incentivise forks. Most people who don't want to use Chrome because it's Google's or for some other reason will use one of the forks or Chromium-based browsers.

By keeping this illusion of choice, Google extends its control.