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
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2015, @02:59AM
Yes, and billions of dollars of annual business rely on this stuff.
To be a doctor you need a medical degree and admittance into a medical professional organization.
To be a lawyer, you need a law degree and admittance to the local bar.
To be an engineer, you need an engineering degree and admittance to a professional engineering society.
To be a computer professional, you just need to be able to fart or pick your nose... not even well.