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What's the Deal with Chromium on Linux? Google at Odds with Package Maintainers

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday January 27 2021, @03:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the browser-non-grata dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Linux users are more likely than most to be familiar with Chromium, Google's the free and open source web project that serves as the basis for their wildly popular Chrome. Since the project's inception over a decade ago, users have been able to compile the BSD licensed code into a browser that's almost the same as the closed-source Chrome. As such, most distributions offer their own package for the browser and some even include it in the base install. Unfortunately, that may be changing soon.

[...] To the average Chromium user, this doesn't sound like much of a problem. In fact, you might even assume it doesn't apply to you. The language used in the post makes it sound like Google is referring to browsers which are spun off of the Chromium codebase, and at least in part, they are. But the search giant is also using this opportunity to codify their belief that the only official Chromium builds are the ones that they provide themselves. With that simple change, anyone using a distribution-specific build of Chromium just became persona non grata.

Source: https://hackaday.com/2021/01/26/whats-the-deal-with-chromium-on-linux-google-at-odds-with-package-maintainers/

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday January 29 2021, @08:15PM (1 child)

    by RamiK (1813) on Friday January 29 2021, @08:15PM (#1106686)

    It's no surprise nobody bothered. Who knows when Mozilla will go and change it all again?

    They iterated 2 breaking protocol changes over the course of 2 decades and explained how those changes were necessary due to security concerns.

    xBrowserSync...[i]s a much better solution

    Implementing a shim around the browsers' own protocols will eliminate those sync issues. Whether it's worth the extra maintenance burden is for the developer to decide and the users to accept/reject. Personally I'm not using xBrowserSync over those issues. But your mileage may vary...

    For passwords, I already use pass. I just copy/paste into the browser using its built-in clipboard integration (which automatically reverts after a few seconds) - no browser plugins required.

    On the desktop I prefer passff [github.com]. Again, mileage may vary...

    I don't sync anything with my phone, quite deliberately so - I don't trust phones to be secure, what with all the proprietary components they run...I don't want my password manager to be stored/synced on the same device I use for 2FA. I think that's asking for trouble, and I also don't particularly want to use dedicated 2FA hardware.

    Fair enough. I used it on and off with a 2nd store dedicated for "low-security" passwords made out of linking only the passwords I need to the phone. That way when I need to change/add a password it syncs. But if/when you can avoid it...

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  • (Score: 2) by boltronics on Monday February 01 2021, @03:40AM

    by boltronics (580) on Monday February 01 2021, @03:40AM (#1107389) Homepage Journal

    > They iterated 2 breaking protocol changes over the course of 2 decades and explained how those changes were necessary due to security concerns.

    I don't believe "security" is the concern - it's just an excuse. The new sync has known security issues and last I checked they don't care. They don't want to change the way it works because it would be problematic due to their integration with Pocket (a proprietary service - it still blows my mind that Firefox added this integration). There's an open bug report about it somewhere that I was reading last year, and it wasn't a new issue either. That was one of the big disincentives I saw regarding Firefox Sync specifically.

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