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UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

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Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#31

Post by nathancahill »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #18
technion wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about "Internet Explorer", is that using IE Edge, I often run into websites that demand I "Upgrade" to Chrome and won't let me use them. Fudging the user agent however, allows that website to work perfectly fine. Not testing in IE is one thing. Presenting an nonintrusive message warning you don't test in IE is another. Paying money to advertise your website, then, when I click your link, greeting me with a…

So much this. While on Firefox, Google only pulls that on you once, they constantly reoffer it to Edge users on a nearly weekly basis. And recently, they actually made the bar bigger and more obtrusive. I filed an issue on the Chromium bug tracker, they assigned someone to look into it, and of course, nothing has been said since.

Chromium != Google. Here it's Google that is pushing Chrome.

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#32

Post by JoshTriplett »

superkuh wrote: post #22
JoshTriplett wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No good reason to run that instead of Firefox. It looks like their main motivation to fork was to preserve XUL and XPCOM, but since Firefox doesn't plan to keep those, almost no addons will continue using them; every maintained addon will update to work with current Firefox. And using an unmaintained addon is dangerous .

Except for Mozilla's policy of trying to making Firefox race Chrome to be the best browser for the lowest common denominator. You can't even edit your addons in Firefox anymore. They have to be signed by Mozilla. > And using an unmaintained addon is dangerous. And this is the kind of thinking I'm talking about. Firefore/Chrome/etc are all about protecting tech ignorants from themselves rather than allowing adept user…

> And this is the kind of thinking I'm talking about.

The kind of thinking that says "security-sensitive software with no active maintenance and regular updates is a security hole waiting to happen"?

Letting users install and run unmaintained software is dangerous. They'll get exploited. (And they'll blame the browser for that, and rightfully so.)

You can still do what you want; it's entirely possible to install local untrusted addons. You just have to poke some settings that are intentionally hidden from most end users, to make it somewhat more likely that users doing so understand the implications. And similarly, you can make your addon available to others willing to go through the same steps. They'll balk at doing so, and rightfully so.

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#33

Post by offa »

dangoldin wrote: post #3
Retr0spectrum wrote: post #2

"Googlification" has been my main reason for avoiding chrom{e,ium} until now. This could become my main browser. IMHO Chrome has a better track record than Firefox when it comes to security issues, but Firefox has better privacy.

Have you tried Brave? I've been using it on the side and it's speedy and constantly improving.

Not OP, but I tried it some time ago, haven't checked back on it since. How is it privacy-wise, comparable to FF?

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#34

Post by sunnyps »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #8
zenincognito wrote: post #6

On Linux Mint I get Error:Dependency is not satisfiable:libavcodec-ffmpeg56(>=7.2.4)|libavcodec-ffmped-extra56(>=7:2.4) Suggestion - The repo does not provide install instructions. For a highly not tech privacy enthusiast, I find it difficult to install for linux.

Never try to install a package intended for Debian or Ubuntu on another distribution that just happens to use .deb files, unless you have experience dealing with package dependency issues and similar problems. Either use a package intended for the distribution, or use a binary, or build from source. That looks like a version of libavcodec specific to one version of Ubuntu; that package will never work on Debian, anot…

Ha! This is one of the reasons* Chrome ships with its own copy of ffmpeg which this fork decided was a bad thing.

* the other being security updates for ffmpeg

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#35

Post by hgf888 »

sunnyps wrote: post #24
NeutronBoy wrote: post #4

While I applaud the effort that's gone into this, I urge people to consider (and use and contribute to!) Firefox. It's one of the last truly open-source browsers - both in terms of source code visibility (which Chrome(ium) has), and in terms of being able to contribute (which Chrome(ium) has not).

Why do you say that it's not easy to contribute to Chromium? Also the "last truly open-source" browser is hyperbolic given that Chromium is both open-source and is also developed in the open[1][2][3]. If anything over the past few years it has become more open-source as many components have been upstreamed (e.g. pdfium, android/ios stuff, etc.) [1] Chromium bug tracker: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/lis…

It doesn't matter if it's open source - it's an issue of trust. Firefox has never secretly downloaded binary blobs in the background which listen to my microphone without my permission or knowledge.[1] Chromium lost all my trust that day, even if none of my private conversations/data made it to Google that particular time.

[1] https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=500922

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#36

Post by JoshTriplett »

sunnyps wrote: post #34
JoshTriplett wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never try to install a package intended for Debian or Ubuntu on another distribution that just happens to use .deb files, unless you have experience dealing with package dependency issues and similar problems. Either use a package intended for the distribution, or use a binary, or build from source. That looks like a version of libavcodec specific to one version of Ubuntu; that package will never work on Debian, anot…

Ha! This is one of the reasons* Chrome ships with its own copy of ffmpeg which this fork decided was a bad thing. * the other being security updates for ffmpeg

It's a bad thing for Linux platforms, which should use the system version of ffmpeg; however, that's something much easier to solve when you're actually the Linux distribution, rather than a third party.

Note that many of the changes in this fork come from the Debian packaging of Chromium.

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#37

Post by jakebasile »

striking wrote: post #29
michel-slm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't wait for Flatpak or Snappy to make end-user binary distribution a breeze

I can, they're not really all that great as an alternative. Use a better distro with a better packaging mechanism. Instead of inventing something new, use something that already exists.

Yes, technological process often comes from not inventing something new. I don't have strong opinions on snappy aside from the name being silly, but taking anti-NIH to the extreme is not how we advance the industry.

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#38

Post by Scarbutt »

Retr0spectrum wrote: post #2

"Googlification" has been my main reason for avoiding chrom{e,ium} until now. This could become my main browser. IMHO Chrome has a better track record than Firefox when it comes to security issues, but Firefox has better privacy.

Isn't privacy a moot point when firefox's security history has been much worse than chrome?

https://it.slashdot.org/submission/5553519/pwn2own-2016-wont...

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#39

Post by throwaway2048 »

NeutronBoy wrote: post #4

While I applaud the effort that's gone into this, I urge people to consider (and use and contribute to!) Firefox. It's one of the last truly open-source browsers - both in terms of source code visibility (which Chrome(ium) has), and in terms of being able to contribute (which Chrome(ium) has not).

chrome (the binary from google) is not open source, it bundles a ton of closed source code.

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#40

Post by striking »

jakebasile wrote: post #37
striking wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can, they're not really all that great as an alternative. Use a better distro with a better packaging mechanism. Instead of inventing something new, use something that already exists.

Yes, technological process often comes from not inventing something new. I don't have strong opinions on snappy aside from the name being silly, but taking anti-NIH to the extreme is not how we advance the industry.

It's not extreme at all. All you have to do is install a distro with a good packaging system. Arch is wonderful, and I've heard good things about Void and Gentoo.

Imagine a package system where you could ask to download node.js, and you'll get the latest version. And that's it.

Better yet, imagine having to build a package from source and installing it. You could do it by hand, leaving orphan files all over your system. Or you could write a PKGBUILD that handles installing dependencies, building, and packaging, all in one go.

That's what running Arch feels like. Being able to install fresh popular packages, and being able to easily package your own. Try it sometime.

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