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Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

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Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#231
It would be great if Debian could make the Chromium in their repos a de-googled version and keep it up to date.

I have no idea how the Debian project is financed. So I don't know if it is possible for them to assign resources to it.

But Debian has a strong history of being trustworthy. So a userfriendly browser maintained by them would be nice.

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#232
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

protonmail sells your email for profit. I would better recommend fastmail which charges you, but it is still in unsafe legal regulation. You are not safe from the "lawful" dragnet neither.

Could you please provide a citation for your first claim that ProtonMail sells your email for profit? Their entire sales pitch heavily revolves around clientside decryption that should in theory prevent this from being possible; I'd very much like to know if this is not the case.

Plenty:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8755492 (javascript)

https://medium.com/criptext/we-need-a-new-encrypted-email-se...

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#233
post #231

It would be great if Debian could make the Chromium in their repos a de-googled version and keep it up to date. I have no idea how the Debian project is financed. So I don't know if it is possible for them to assign resources to it. But Debian has a strong history of being trustworthy. So a userfriendly browser maintained by them would be nice.

Debian gets sponsored by various ways but the money isn't used directly for developers nor their time. It is volunteer based project and money is usually used for hardware, sprints, conferences, outreachy etc.

That said Debian does take it seriously when it comes to privacy and security so you can always report bugs on such. Do note that Debian's Chromium builds have always disabled the infamous "mic always on" option which Chromium has (or had, didn't check) by default.

Btw, Debian now moved to gitlab hosting (their own instance salsa.debian.org) so it should be much easier to contribute to Debian now. :)

P.S. while Debian Developer myself, I stay away a lot from browser and especially Chromium, and I always suggest Firefox (it has really got better last year or so).

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#234
post #123
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. And it’s my choice to block them. Brave actually offers a way to pay for content, if I understand it correctly.

Sure, you can technically starve them of micro ad revenue if you want, but if you're not going to abide by Content creators implicit contract of having their content served with supporting ads then IMO it's best for all involved that you either subscribe for ad-free content directly from them or just stop consuming their content altogether. There are humans on the other side producing that content, they have as much…

Must I also keep the TV un-muted and watch the advertisements?

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#235
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please provide a citation for your first claim that ProtonMail sells your email for profit? Their entire sales pitch heavily revolves around clientside decryption that should in theory prevent this from being possible; I'd very much like to know if this is not the case.

Plenty: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8755492 (javascript) https://medium.com/criptext/we-need-a-new-encrypted-email-se...

Can you quote the part where it says that "protonmail sells your email for profit"?

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Vivaldi a while ago and, while I really liked it, it didn't justify not being open-source. I'm not one of the OSS elitists, but the browser, like the OS, is just one of those basic things that I want full control over.

While it's not OSS in the common sense, the source code is available. https://vivaldi.com/source/

Has anyone managed to compile that? All I could find was a few people getting errors and no help.

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#237
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that Vivaldi is closed source. If you're looking for open source only, consider Firefox.

For projects large like a browser, not sure how having everything open sourced helps users. No one can audit it well enough anyway. Only track record can tell its security and stability.

[deleted]

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#238
post #230
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google uses non-standard extensions that only Chrome supports for Gmail and Youtube. For neutral email apps, Firefox runs perfectly fine. For Gmail, it will be slightly slower than Chrome.

It's infuriating how they slow their stuff on Firefox but send optimized stuff to IE/Edge. Gmail is still okay once past the 2-3s loading but on YT it really test your patience every time you click on something.

I find the YouTube Classic extension helps with that[1].

P.S. But we should all switch to PeerTube or a similar effort eventually.

1 - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-class...

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#239
post #84

My preference for a well supported Chromium-based browser that's not Chrome would be to use one of the "Blink" based browsers: https://vivaldi.com https://brave.com https://www.opera.com Opera was purchased by a Chinese consortium, I'm not a fan of Brave's hijacking of ad spaces so my preference is currently vivaldi - which was founded by co-founder and former CEO of Opera and has been adding new innovative features…

I always hear about Vivaldi as an alternative but how sustainable is their business?

Is this run by a passion of ex Opera CEO?

If this is just a struggle without enough business model to back it to last at least 10 years, I don't think it counts as an alternative.

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#240
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the browser. By default no ads are shown. Everything is opt-in at all levels. The idea is to remove the coercion from ads. Users will earn 70% of all gross ad revenue. The remaining 30% will be split between publisher and the browser. Users can get paid to tolerate ads, or they can choose to see no ads. If users see ads then users, the browser, and sites all earn money. If they don't then nobody earns money…

Yeah but brave controls all these levers.

Actually, because they're using BAT as the medium of exchange, hypothetically anyone could build another browser / client / extension that could be used and users wouldn't need to worry about any sort of "lock-in".
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