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Binary Blob Banished By Berated Browser's Better Build (Chromium)

posted by janrinok on Saturday June 27 2015, @09:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the did-not-want dept.

"gewg_" writes:

El Reg reports

New Chromium builds will no longer download/install the Hotword Shared Module and will automatically remove the module on startup if it was previously installed.

A closed-source and binary-only kernel module caused a fair fuss when it was found inveigling its way into the very much open-source Chromium.

Thanking the community for their attention and input on the issue, one of the project developers told the issues ticket thread that "as of the newly-landed r335874, Chromium builds, by default, will not download this module at all."

[...] An additional developer update regarding Hotword explains that "Builds of Google Chrome will still download this module by default. It will not be activated unless the user explicitly flips a preference to do so."

Related: Google Drops Binary Code into Chromium for Linux

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Saturday June 27 2015, @09:53PM

    by jmorris (4844) on Saturday June 27 2015, @09:53PM (#202238)

    Nobody runs Chromium unless they care about issues such as this. You have to go looking for it intentionally. Somebody just had their head up their butt when they made the original decision and now it is fixed. Had they not acted it was a certainty that no packaged copy of it would have retained the misfeature anyway and there would have been alt binary distribution points for the Windows folks springing up. So best to deal with that reality and minimize the PR damage.

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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 28 2015, @01:05AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 28 2015, @01:05AM (#202279) Journal

    Alt binary sites? Like this? https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php [srware.net] Chrome and Chromium already do stuff that some people don't like.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday June 28 2015, @01:48AM

      by frojack (1554) on Sunday June 28 2015, @01:48AM (#202297) Journal

      Aren't there like 6 or 8 chromium based browsers [techgyd.com] all claiming to do pretty much the same sort of privacy cleanup?

      I have a friend in the office next floor above that swears by Epic browser. But its main trick is a proxy.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday June 28 2015, @01:49AM

      by kaszz (4211) on Sunday June 28 2015, @01:49AM (#202298) Journal

      Like [srware.net]:
        * Generated installation number which will be sent to Google after the installation.
        * Information is sent to Google to provide suggestions.
        * Typed wrong in the adress bar, this is sent to Google and you get an error message from Google's servers.
        * Details about crashes or failures are sent Google's servers.
        * RLZ-Tracking, for example, when and where Chrome has been downloaded.
        * Google Updater, which loads at every Windows in background.
        * URL-Tracker

      Features:
        * Built-in adblocker which can be configured by a single file.
        * The User-Agent in Iron can be flexiblel and permanently changed by UA.ini.
        * Iron offers you 12 preview-thumbs to make the most of the available space on your monitor.

      Verdict: Slimy spies.