Ask HN: How much did it cost to develop Google Chrome?

That cannot be answered specifically as its distributed in many of small projects, my modest guess will be around 200 millions for development and total 400-500 millions for including all advertising and other marketing campaigns.[ie. Unaccountable price to place on google homepage for multiple years]

I do not think you will get specifics.

Those who know the specifics are likely under non-disclosure agreements and unable to tell without exposing themselves to legal risks.

Isn't Chromium open source since [insert year here] and therefore free labor for the G?

While it is possible for people at large to make contributions (did so myself) a large majority of Chromium developers are paid by Google.

If you look around https://bugs.chromium.org/, you'll see that most developers have google.com email addresses.

I doubt it is billions... but i am curious as well... my estimate is under 100 million.