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UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

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351–360 of 441 posts

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

#351
post #208

Removing Google's binary blobs is mitigating one issue, but replacing it with an entire binary blog from an anonymous github user might be introducing new ones. On that note - can you tell us more about the project? ie. if you plan on keeping this updated long terms (i've watched a lot of promising chromium forks fade after an initial big splash), what your plans are, if you'll you accept contributions, how the binar…

> a lighter browser (without canvas, webgl, webrtc etc.) Please do not do this. Webgl and Webrtc are fundamental technologies needed to efficiently do basic activities like process an image or send sound data to another user. I am all for a "lighter" browser, by removing UI, removing dev tools, etc. Get rid of the stuff that's not required to make a web page work well. But WebGL and WebRTC are cornerstone technologie…

I don't see a problem with this - most browsers with "other" or reduced functionality are niche products at best. They're relative cheap to provide and they don't affect the greater web itself.

If you get right down to it, what you need to make a web page work is HTML. That's it - WebGL and WebRTC are interesting, but the web isn't going to die if one browser doesn't include them. Lynx still works fine without them, after all.

I'm seeing a lot of alarmism from people who I'm guessing have vested interest in those products, completely forgetting that Chrome, Firefox, Explorer and Safari (in no particular order) are what drive the current state of the modern browser.

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

#352
post #7

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).

Any opinions on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Moon_%28web_browser%29 ?

I've been using Pale Moon for a few years now and really like it. Faster than Firefox, many of the obnoxious elements of the new UI pared down or stripped out, and binary-compatible with almost all Firefox extensions. Give it a shot and see if you like it.

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

#353
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>removing dev tools Hold your horses! The introduction of dev tools was one of the best things to happen to browsers. Removing them would take away opportunity from a lot of people in learning web development, and would also lead to websites having more bugs.

You can hardly see source in Chrome without the dev tools. The Ctrl+U "functionality" just generates huge HTML document (a table filled with spans to highlight syntax) and it is very slow on large websites (both generating it and rendering I'd assume).

The CTRL-U is just the HTML part of the page. Not the CSS, images, or the other stuff.

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

#354
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? From what I’ve read, it was completely harmless. I smell FUD :-)

I think it's only fair to tell people when they've been downvoted. I downvoted you because that smug sarcastic smiley really set my teeth on edge.

Whoops! My intention with that smiley was to not appear negative :-) (I do think it’s FUD.)

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

#355
post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IPFS already has a peer-to-peer chat room that can share messages, files, and streaming videos without a central server . This means users have a way to share content without worrying that it could fall into the wrong hands or be censored by big entities like corporations or governments. And it all depends on tech like WebRTC. That kind of infrastructure is crucial to the freedom of information and therefore the free…

I would be interesting to make a browser where these things are by default unloaded plugins with the ability to detect when they are needed. Then the best of both worlds are present... no? Some people wish they didn't have to pay the costs for these things because they never use them.

What cost do you think is being paid that would be mitigated by the complexity of a plugin system?

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

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? From what I’ve read, it was completely harmless. I smell FUD :-)

A subset of the tiles are paid advertisements. "Completely harmless" depends on your point of view. Personally, if I have a choice, I'll opt for the browser that doesn't show me "sponsored content" on first boot, just out of principle.

IIRC, the sponsored tiles only appeared on new installations and they weren’t targeting the user (i.e. the user’s privacy wasn’t compromised). I dunno, I remember reading about this and thinking how meaningless it really is and how grotesque the negative response is.

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

#357
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>removing dev tools Hold your horses! The introduction of dev tools was one of the best things to happen to browsers. Removing them would take away opportunity from a lot of people in learning web development, and would also lead to websites having more bugs.

You can hardly see source in Chrome without the dev tools. The Ctrl+U "functionality" just generates huge HTML document (a table filled with spans to highlight syntax) and it is very slow on large websites (both generating it and rendering I'd assume).

That's nothing to do with Chrome though, that's how the HTML is.

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

#358

This is awesome. One of my biggest gripes with Chrome is the inability to stop a rogue site from playing audio (on top of the music I'm listening to in another tab). CNN is one of the worst, as soon as I find the freaking video on the page and try to pause/mute it, the video controls slide away. Why can't Chrome allow me to just turn off audio on that tab? I have assumed Google doesn't give us that because it will in…

> Why can't Chrome allow me to just turn off audio on that tab Well this feature is built into Chrome. Just right click the rogue tab and click "Mute Tab"

Or click the audio icon on the tab that appears when the tab is playing audio.

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

#359
post #208

Removing Google's binary blobs is mitigating one issue, but replacing it with an entire binary blog from an anonymous github user might be introducing new ones. On that note - can you tell us more about the project? ie. if you plan on keeping this updated long terms (i've watched a lot of promising chromium forks fade after an initial big splash), what your plans are, if you'll you accept contributions, how the binar…

"Anonymous github user" part is very true. I am not about to install random binaries from the internet. I wish there was reputable org behind the builds. I'll stick with google binaries unless somebody knows a good alternative.

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

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free Software version derived from a proprietary browser Chrome is based on Chromium, not the other way around. It's also pretty much Chrome with changed branding and no built-in Flash (thank god!) Thinking that google leaves Chromium alone or that it's somehow independent is naive.

I'm afraid that's my clumsy phrasing. 1st Chrome release: 2008-09-02 1st Chromium release: Dec 17th, 2012 So even though current Chrome might be based on Chromium, Chromium was initially derived from Chrome. That means somewhere down the line someone at Google must have suggested making a free version, probably out of enthusiasm for open source, and even though it buys Google little, the project was okay'ed. I have n…

> 1st Chrome release: 2008-09-02

> 1st Chromium release: Dec 17th, 2012

> So even though current Chrome might be based on Chromium, Chromium was initially derived from Chrome.

Not sure where you got that second date, but Chromium was definitely released the same day as Chrome: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2008/09/google...

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