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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

#281

Post by jononor »

pythonaut_16 wrote: post #265
bad_user wrote: post #243

If you're using "Ungoogled" Chromium, you're still contributing to Chrome's monopoly and you're still helping Google's dominance of the web. Chromium may be open source, but its development is controlled by Google. Unless you have Google-like resources available, you won't be able to create a meaningful fork that your less technically savvy users can benefit from. "Ungoogled" Chromium is a trap. Use another browser.…

The user isn't the problem, the developer is. If you're developing against Chrome/Chromium, particularly "works in Chrome" instead of developing against the published Web standards, you're support Google & Chrome.

The developers decisions are influenced a lot on marketshare. Non-Chrome/Blink being more common will make "Works in Chrome" development less common.

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#282

Post by rphlx »

erikb wrote: post #202
franga2000 wrote: post #156

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.

I'm a huge fan of FOSS, but do you really think that you have full control over any modern piece of software? I think that underestimates how many people actually work on such a project and how many new updates we're getting on a daily basis. Nobody is more than %-wise controlling that stuff anymore. And this % is based on regular financial(!) investment in developer-hours but not in what software you use. PS: I just…

I completely agree. The rapid flux in these huge browser projects makes personal security audits impossible even if you are one of the top 10 super-rigorous C++ devs in the world. Would be nice if some project forked the browser of their choice and then got some very careful well-respected teams/rockstars to audit it, and from then on, applied only security fixes and outright-rejected dubious stuff like WebUSB, google auto-login, etc. With Chrome and Chromium, sure, you get a very good security team working on it for you at Google, but you also get changes which are not in your best interests and/or undermine security directly or indirectly like, well, WebUSB. This is not ideal.

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#283

Post by projectramo »

erikb wrote: post #202
franga2000 wrote: post #156

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.

I'm a huge fan of FOSS, but do you really think that you have full control over any modern piece of software? I think that underestimates how many people actually work on such a project and how many new updates we're getting on a daily basis. Nobody is more than %-wise controlling that stuff anymore. And this % is based on regular financial(!) investment in developer-hours but not in what software you use. PS: I just…

The purpose of the open source requirement is not so I can figure out what is going on and exert control.

The purpose of the open source requirement is so that many other people -- some much smarter than I am, and others only a little smarter than I am -- can figure out what is going on, and then post warnings to me about why I should avoid it.

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#284

Post by floatingatoll »

chii wrote: post #47
floatingatoll wrote: post #37

“It also features some changes” says to me that this isn’t a safe fork to recommend to others. Rather than simply releasing a de-badged instance of the public Chrome product, it additionally includes “editorial” comments in the form of turning various switches on or off. Use at your own risk.

if they transparently list out the changes (rather than force someone to diff the source), then it's OK.

Nope, my objection is to the mindset of making more changes than are necessary to release it. If their opinion had been restricted to “for removing Google” rather than also “and some other stuff”, it’d inspire a lot more trust in their long-term intentions. Being able to see diffs does not improve my trust in their judgement or reasoning.

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#285

Post by techntoke »

noir_lord wrote: post #244
mosselman wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was for me as well, but lately I have been experiencing incredible slow-downs in Firefox. I thought it must be my imagination until I tried other browsers and the difference was like between day and night. Firefox is just too slow, even with their new engine.

Funnily enough I noticed this just the other day. On https://browserbench.org/Speedometer2.0/ (usual benchmark caveats apply) Chrome scored 68.7 and FF scored 50. That was on Fedora 28 on a ThinkPad (i7-7700HQ), I was surprised at the delta between the two tbh.

Firefox performs terribly on Linux, and lacks a lot of hardware support for acceleration that Chromium has. I am currently using:

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/chromium-vaapi-bin

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#286

Post by techntoke »

vbsteven wrote: post #162

If you're so afraid of Google just don't use Chromium at all. It's a bit like using tools developed by the NSA thinking you are safe because you manually applied patches for all the known backdoors.

Chromium is open source. MacOS, Windows, Safari, Edge, etc are not.

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#287

Post by techntoke »

TekMol wrote: 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 can't even get proper graphics driver support.

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#288

Post by pythonaut_16 »

jononor wrote: post #281
pythonaut_16 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The user isn't the problem, the developer is. If you're developing against Chrome/Chromium, particularly "works in Chrome" instead of developing against the published Web standards, you're support Google & Chrome.

The developers decisions are influenced a lot on marketshare. Non-Chrome/Blink being more common will make "Works in Chrome" development less common.

That's fair but you can easily develop for the majority Chrome marketshare by focusing on designing and building your applications on top of the actual web standards instead of Chrome's specific implementations. Probably 95% of the APIs you use in a typical app will be easy to use in a standard way anyway.

WebRTC and some of the more mercurial APIs might be a challenge though.

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#289

Post by ChristianBundy »

letmeaskaq7532 wrote: post #90
ChristianBundy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Epiphany (aka GNOME Web) and it's like Safari: a minimal WebKit-based browser with no Google integration, but it's cross-platform, open source, and features Firefox sync integration for history/bookmarks/passwords/etc. I can't recommend it enough.

I am never going to use any GNOME product if intend to use it for more than a week. Too many breaking changes, too many feature changes, too often.

I might recommend using an operating system that matches your values. Maybe something like Debian? I have my own criticisms of the GNOME project, but I really enjoy their release cycle.

Re: Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration

#290

Post by drb91 »

mythz wrote: post #123
drb91 wrote: 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…

> it's best for all involved that you either subscribe for ad-free content directly from them

Most don't offer that choice.

> There are humans on the other side producing that content, they have as much right for being compensated for their efforts as we do.

I think I missed that right in our constitution--you must respect other's wishes to impose ads on the content that is otherwise freely accessible on the internet. A “right” is hardly the right word—“social courtesy” may be better.

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