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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

#101

Post by dietrichepp »

RubyPinch wrote: post #88
mortehu wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that it had the ability to listen to audio shouldn't be the issue, since it wouldn't do that unless you explicitly enabled it. Your grammar is kind of ambiguous there. Certainly it was downloaded without permission, but it wasn't listening without permission. Any web page can listen to your microphone if you allow it to, and the code for it can be downloaded without your consent, even if you have JavaScript…

> even if you have JavaScript disabled, if it's embedded in the HTML code. how so?

I think the point is that if you disable JavaScript, inline JavaScript is still downloaded.

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

#102

Post by enobrev »

ams6110 wrote: post #89
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…

I also run into websites that force me to spoof the user agent string just to gain access. Intuit is one offender.

Intuit doesn't seem to do this anymore, though they definitely did for years. I've used mint, quick books online, and TurboTax on chrome and Firefox on Linux without issue.

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

#103

Post by Springtime »

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.

> While on Firefox, Google only pulls that on you once

To this day, and for years, I continue to receive these messages from Google sites informing me to upgrade to Chrome. I've even had them pop-up on Chromium.

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

#104

Post by lohankin »

byuu wrote: post #65
hartator wrote: post #46

Firefox is not really a good company anymore, they care more about politics than doing something awesome. Cf. the firing of their CEO.

He was not fired. Straight from Mozilla themselves: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat... "On April 3, 2014 Brendan Eich voluntarily stepped down as CEO of Mozilla." He could have stayed if he wanted to. Yes, it would have hurt their brand if he did, and yes it should have. Because yes, I and many others care very much if the CEO of a product donates to strip a minority of equal rights. Than…

Consider hypothetical situation: suddenly "Brave" browser (referred to below) becomes popular. Will you renew your personal vendetta against Brendan Eich? Because the reasons you cited still apply.

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

#105

Post by edgartaor »

echelon wrote: post #82

Is there a decent alternative to Chrome on Android? I am absolutely, nauseatingly sick of ads on mobile. Almost every news website I visit fills the browser with full screen ads that are infuriatingly difficult to close, change the scrolling behavior and viewport in an entirely unusable way, or try to launch Google Play Store links in the background. It's so annoying, and definitely to the point of being one of my to…

If your main concern are annoying ads, you can try BlockThis [0] which block ads with DNS or use their DNS in your WiFi configuration. 92.222.28.123 151.80.148.242

Also you can setup your own ad blocker DNS server with [1] PiHole (works on any linux machine)

Another option is [2]NetGuard firewall with a host file

There're options, nobody likes ads

P.S. All these projects are open source.

[0] https://block-this.com/ [1] https://pi-hole.net/ [2] https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/blob/master/ADBLOCKING.md

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

#106

Post by enobrev »

ams6110 wrote: post #91
echelon wrote: post #82

Is there a decent alternative to Chrome on Android? I am absolutely, nauseatingly sick of ads on mobile. Almost every news website I visit fills the browser with full screen ads that are infuriatingly difficult to close, change the scrolling behavior and viewport in an entirely unusable way, or try to launch Google Play Store links in the background. It's so annoying, and definitely to the point of being one of my to…

I use Firefox on Android, with uBlock Origin plugin. It's not perfect. There are deviations from the usual "Material Design" UI standards. Some sites don't render properly. It's slower. But it's worth it to me.

I recently switched to Firefox on Android as well, specifically for uBlock Origin support, which has significantly improved browsing overall. Only issue I have is that default apps won't open for links. Otherwise I've been very happy with it.

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

#107

Post by mynameislegion »

hgf888 wrote: post #35
sunnyps wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Firefox downloads OpenH.264 blobs and are working on supporting EME blobs.

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

#108

Post by nixos »

fowlerpower wrote: post #100
sverige wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In general I think people ought to look at Google much more skeptically than they used to and all of the technologies that they push for. They all in some way push their agenda forward. I've been skeptical of Google for a long time, and quit using them as much as possible since they rolled out "Don't be evil." Talk about telegraphing the punch.

It's funny how corporate marketing works. For a long time I used to really love their products and their processes. Maybe it was when they got rid of "don't be evil" but at some point they started turning into just another corporation. A corporation with a ton of resources and a ton of people's information. Anyway I don't want to go into a rant but lately everything they do even the open source stuff is just to furth…

As far as I remember, it was around when Google+ came out.

Google started as a technology company for nerds. Remember when Google broke all "rules" when their website was a simple image, input, and two buttons?

Then they were into open standards, tech innovation, and where the company was run by engineers, and not media people (see Yahoo).

The result was a focus on UX and not design.

Unfortunately, around when Google+ came out, they decided they're done with that, and became a "company for the masses".

XMPP integration - dead Open Source apps - dead

They're back to bloat (just JS instead of animated GIFs and Flash), "beauty" over "UX", closed source apps (remember when most apps put out by Google were open source? Remember the shock that Picasso wasn't?)

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

#109

Post by rocky1138 »

Mrat wrote: post #56
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).

Last time I tried using Firefox i didn't liked it. But last week I completely moved from Chromium to Firefox. I didn't miss Chromium.

Are you running the multiprocess Firefox build? The speed improvements with that version are insane.

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

#110

Post by djsumdog »

mynameislegion wrote: post #107
hgf888 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Firefox downloads OpenH.264 blobs and are working on supporting EME blobs.

That gets into the entire H.264 licensing issue. It's a trade-off between open source and wanting to support H.264 HTML5 video. (instead of just webm) :-/
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