Chromium I use pretty much only for Youtube, logged in to my Google account. Doesn’t need the google magic API to stay logged in, I could loose the integration and still be fine.
Chrome seems to run Netflix and amazon video a bit better, but it’s probably a subjective thing. I’m stuck at potato quality on Amazon video anyway, so I just lowered my expectations.
Firefox/Brave for anything else, especially data I would rather not send back to Mother Alphabet.
But there are enough Google analytics stuff on enough pages for Google to match ip’s and track me across vast swathes of the net anyway, so it’s only me I’m inconveniencing.
Basically I can live without the API. I still leak all my tasty data all over Google anyway…
First Opera killed Presto, then MS yeeted EdgeHTML. Both were good browser engines but here we are now.
I personally also don’t understand what’s all the fuzz about Google essentially de-Googling Chromium? Can’t you just roll with Chrome if you want all the bells and whistles? Like @TheCakeIsNaOH said only thing I would want is the safe browsing API, but I believe there’s going to be some sort of open source alternative for that as well.
They were “just” lacking a kernel. Whether HURD would have gotten anywhere without Linux’ arrival is something we’ll never know, but there were definitely options out there to get a working OS that didn’t involve Linux, like using a BSD kernel.
Fact is though that FSF’s hardline stance on openness would have meant we wouldn’t have gotten “here” (for some definition of “here”) as cooperation with businesses would have been a lot harder as the FSF does not compromise on code openness.
As for the Chromium hubbub, I always assumed Chromium came without the Google “features” (only if you compile yourself?), so I’m more surprised this is even a point of contention than anything else.
Honestly I don’t see what the fuss is about… isn’t the whole point of using Chromium instead of Chrome to get away from Google in the first place? Why would you even be using Googles Sync then? You don’t want them to have your data but then you use the sync that… sends them your data?
Please someone enlighten me?
Doesn’t FF use FFmpeg for the free formats and OpenH264 (the cisco thing) for H264 decoding/licensing? That also doesn’t seem related to those APIs.
Well maybe not “here”, but some of the quotes in the OP sure sound like it.
The whole thing to me sounds like a bunch of whinging about a service going away that is easily used if you run the official chrome build. Running chromium is generally a case of doing so because you DON’T want Google having all your data; ergo this was a BUG that has now been fixed.
Unless the removal of chromium is purely because they don’t trust that there is sufficient separation of code-base between Chromium and Chrome and THAT is the reason its removal is being considered? i.e., the fact that the bug was introduced is the reason for removal, not the fact that it is broken now being the reason for removal…
GOOD. I knew some Google stuff existed in Chromium, because ungoogled-chromium exists. Seems Google is starting to do the ungoogled-chromium developers’ jobs for them! We probably should be thankful.
There is something boggling my mind when it comes to privacy nutbars (like myself). Unlike me, are there people who actually want to sync 1 browser profile on all their devices? I think such a feature shouldn’t even be considered for people like us, that’s like literally putting a long flag pole on your head, to tell websites that it’s you using another device. I understand the convenience for people who don’t care about privacy, but for those who do, why are you making the trackers’ lives easier? Even if it would be in vain to try to hide your identity or persona online and trackers would still find you, at least make their lives harder, make them put some effort into determining that’s actually you.
I use Firefox mostly (with lots of extensions, most important being NoScript and uMatrix), but I also use Brave on one device and Chromium on another device. Brave is only for personal browsing on my laptop that I dedicate to work. Chromium, I got on my actual work laptop (from my company) and I only use it for very few things that need JS that I don’t want to run in Firefox. Both Brave and Chromium can be replaced on the spot with another browser. I probably should stop using Chromium and re-install Falkon, but I really don’t remember why I haven’t used Falkon. I think that one website didn’t work on it and required “either chrome or firefox” (that generic message on certain websites when using unpopular browsers) and didn’t have time to try to trick the website into thinking I’m using chrome.
I’d be delighted to see chromium disappear from all distros’ repos. Although I really like Void maintainers’ humor: xbps-query -Rs chromium
[-] chromium-87.0.4280.141_2 Google's attempt at creating a safer, faster, and more stable browser
[-] chromium-bsu-0.9.16.1_1 Fast paced, arcade-style, top-scrolling space shooter
Considering mine is synced across my phone, home PC, and work laptop (that I use sparingly)?
Simple convenience. I care about the privacy stuff, but not enough to actually take the steps to stop using it. The “sign in with google” 2FA feature is the clincher. I get tired of trying to remember passwords and I’m not about to have all my passwords be the same.
For that, I use KeePass and manually sync them across 2 more devices whenever I make a change. I should probably self-host a BitWarden instance and just VPN home whenever I need to connect somewhere. I used to use SyncThing to sync KeePass, I don’t remember the reason why I stopped using it, but I remember seeing some strange IPs in the client that weren’t mine (I don’t remember if they were public IPs or private class A IPs), so I just removed it and used rsync or winscp for Windows since
But well, if you are going to sign in on other devices, trackers will still find you one way or another, so I do realize that what I’m doing is not always the most privacy-focused thing to do, but I also make some sacrifices for convenience (although my bar for privacy is just a tiny little bit higher).
I’d thought about a password manager, but I seem to remember (although this was years ago) Wendell talking about KeePass getting cracked, or having some security flaw exposed and exploited.
Yeah I remember that one too; I think for him it came down to Bitwarden being easier to sync across devices. I’m not sure that should outweigh it being on somebody elses’s server, IMHO.
I should probably self-host a BitWarden instance and just VPN home whenever I need to connect somewhere. I used to use SyncThing to sync KeePass, I don’t remember the reason why I stopped using it, but I remember seeing some strange IPs in the client that weren’t mine (I don’t remember if they were public IPs or private class A IPs), so I just removed it and used rsync or winscp for Windows since
