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UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

688 points by kawera 10y ago

eatbitseveryday 10y ago
Do extensions work with this build of the browser? I cannot seem to install Privacy Badger from the Chrome webstore.
- eatbitseveryday 10y ago
  Ah, you have to look at the FAQ[1] [1] https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/FAQ.md https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/FA...
Retr0spectrum 10y ago
"Googlification" has been my main reason for avoiding chrom{e,ium} until now. This could become my main browser. IMHO Chrome has a better track record than Firefox when it comes to security issues, but Firefox has better privacy.
- dangoldin 10y ago
  Have you tried Brave? I've been using it on the side and it's speedy and constantly improving.
  - offa 10y ago
    Not OP, but I tried it some time ago, haven't checked back on it since. How is it privacy-wise, comparable to FF?
    - BrendanEich 10y ago
      No, Firefox (same as any of the big four) does not block ads or trackers by default. Brave does. We also have no-script and fingerprinting protection, currently opt-in by site (but we hope to engineer f.p. to on by default). Blocking 3rd party ads and trackers really speeds things up!
- Scarbutt 10y ago
  Isn't privacy a moot point when firefox's security history has been much worse than chrome? https://it.slashdot.org/submission/5553519/pwn2own-2016-wont-attack-firefox-cause-its-too-easy https://it.slashdot.org/submission/5553519/pwn2own-2016-wont...
  - Karunamon 10y ago
    This probably got downvoted for snark, but it's true. The worst Chrome might do is help Google target ads better (if you don't change the defaults). The worst Firefox might do is get your machine pwned.
    - kuschku 10y ago
      > The worst Chrome might do is help Google target ads better (if you don't change the defaults). Chrome is the one running any x86 binary the website presents it with, only trying to run a static verification that it won't do anything evil. Chrome is far more at risk of pwning you (and NaCl sandbox breakouts have been quite common).
      - Karunamon 10y ago
        You mean "the website" which is accessed over HTTPS and more likely than not has its key pinned internally? Point is, Chrome falls every year at Pwn2Own just like every other browser, but only Firefox has been excluded because it's too easy.
        kuschku 10y ago
        > You mean "the website" which is accessed over HTTPS and more likely than not has its key pinned internally? Any website can run NaCl code, you realize that? Even TIDAL uses it on its site for native playback. Even pages only accessed over HTTP.
  - RubyPinch 10y ago
    something seems off about that Looking through the previous year's results, it doesn't seem like firefox has done especially poorly? And as noted in https://redd.it/45epd7 https://redd.it/45epd7, firefox multiprocess is sandboxed, and it does have security features that other browsers don't have so... IMO it doesn't seem like the reason given is quite genuine?
NeutronBoy 10y ago
While I applaud the effort that's gone into this, I urge people to consider (and use and contribute to!) Firefox. It's one of the last truly open-source browsers - both in terms of source code visibility (which Chrome(ium) has), and in terms of being able to contribute (which Chrome(ium) has not).
- eth0up 10y ago
  Any opinions on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Moon_%28web_browser%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Moon_%28web_browser%29 ?
  - JoshTriplett 10y ago
    No good reason to run that instead of Firefox. It looks like their main motivation to fork was to preserve XUL and XPCOM, but since Firefox doesn't plan to keep those, almost no addons will continue using them; every maintained addon will update to work with current Firefox. And using an unmaintained addon is dangerous.
    - criley2 10y ago
      >every maintained addon will update to work with current Firefox Those that can be will be, but I imagine entire categories, scores and scores of addons will be abandoned. So much of what people expect from Firefox addons is going away with no replacement in favor of basically light javascript web apps. Which is the point of the switch: dramatically reduce addon functionality in the interest of safety / security.
    - superkuh 10y ago
      Except for Mozilla's policy of trying to making Firefox race Chrome to be the best browser for the lowest common denominator. You can't even edit your addons in Firefox anymore. They have to be signed by Mozilla. > And using an unmaintained addon is dangerous. And this is the kind of thinking I'm talking about. Firefore/Chrome/etc are all about protecting tech ignorants from themselves rather than allowing adept users to do what they want.
nathancahill 10y ago
Great start. Although I think we need to reverse the trend of Chrome becoming the single browser web developers use. The amount of sites that unnecessarily[0] work only in Chrome is growing daily. And that's not even counting browser extensions. I think this, more than anything else, will determine if Chrome becomes the "Internet Explorer"[1] of this decade or not. Skipping testing in IE is one thing. Skipping testing in Firefox is a sin. [0] Unnecessarily, because cross-browser compatibility isn't hard, simply include CSS prefixes besides -webkit and use standardized JS APIs. [1] Internet Explorer, a term for a closed-source browser that creates non-standard APIs that developers jump on, forcing either users to use that browser, or other browsers to implement the non-standard APIs too.
- technion 10y ago
  The thing about "Internet Explorer", is that using IE Edge, I often run into websites that demand I "Upgrade" to Chrome and won't let me use them. Fudging the user agent however, allows that website to work perfectly fine. Not testing in IE is one thing. Presenting an nonintrusive message warning you don't test in IE is another. Paying money to advertise your website, then, when I click your link, greeting me with a condescending "IE Users are idiots" type message that doesn't let me proceed, doesn't make me buy your product.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    So much this. While on Firefox, Google only pulls that on you once, they constantly reoffer it to Edge users on a nearly weekly basis. And recently, they actually made the bar bigger and more obtrusive. I filed an issue on the Chromium bug tracker, they assigned someone to look into it, and of course, nothing has been said since.
    - sunnyps 10y ago
      That's because it's not a Chromium bug. You should file feedback with the product you're using, most (all?) Google products have a way of doing this.
zenincognito 10y ago
On Linux Mint I get Error:Dependency is not satisfiable:libavcodec-ffmpeg56(>=7.2.4)|libavcodec-ffmped-extra56(>=7:2.4) Suggestion - The repo does not provide install instructions. For a highly not tech privacy enthusiast, I find it difficult to install for linux.
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  Never try to install a package intended for Debian or Ubuntu on another distribution that just happens to use .deb files, unless you have experience dealing with package dependency issues and similar problems. Either use a package intended for the distribution, or use a binary, or build from source. That looks like a version of libavcodec specific to one version of Ubuntu; that package will never work on Debian, another version of Ubuntu, or most non-Debian distributions.
  - michel-slm 10y ago
    Can't wait for Flatpak or Snappy to make end-user binary distribution a breeze
    - striking 10y ago
      I can, they're not really all that great as an alternative. Use a better distro with a better packaging mechanism. Instead of inventing something new, use something that already exists.
      - jakebasile 10y ago
        Yes, technological process often comes from not inventing something new. I don't have strong opinions on snappy aside from the name being silly, but taking anti-NIH to the extreme is not how we advance the industry.
        striking 10y ago
        It's not extreme at all. All you have to do is install a distro with a good packaging system. Arch is wonderful, and I've heard good things about Void and Gentoo. Imagine a package system where you could ask to download node.js, and you'll get the latest version. And that's it. Better yet, imagine having to build a package from source and installing it. You could do it by hand, leaving orphan files all over your system. Or you could write a PKGBUILD that handles installing dependencies, building, and packaging, all in one go. That's what running Arch feels like. Being able to install fresh popular packages, and being able to easily package your own. Try it sometime.
deleted 10y ago
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lfx 10y ago
Is this browser expecting me to use TOR? Welcome and extensions pages on new tab pages wants me to go to http://www.9oo91e.qjz9zk/ http://www.9oo91e.qjz9zk/ domain. I'm not finding anything about that in repo readme page. This looks odd and suspicious. Because it's even blocks requests there -> http://imgur.com/a/UnMu8 http://imgur.com/a/UnMu8
- Retr0spectrum 10y ago
  That isn't a tor URL. I assume it's simply a lazy way of stopping requests to google services by replacing the domains with invalid ones. Edit: see https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/8dd86477d78df6e1b136374851920d493e3e974b/resources/common/domain_regex_list https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/8dd86477d...
  - eloston 10y ago
    Yes, it is a lazy way of stopping requests. I also modified Iridium's "trk" scheme code to pick up domains ending in qjz9zk so I can notify the user.
    - comex 10y ago
      Does qjz9zk have any significance? It seems a little elaborate for a fake domain :)
      - RandomlyGen 10y ago
        It seems like the developer mashed the keyboard.
    - RubyPinch 10y ago
      Could probably make use of the .invalid TLD for this. Should definitely result in less confusion, and it provides something a bit more searchable if people are concerned - doubleclick([A-Za-z\-]*)\.net#60u613cl1c4\1.qjz9zk + doubleclick([A-Za-z\-]*)\.net#doubleclick\1.g.invalid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.invalid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.invalid
tomjakubowski 10y ago
> Replace many web domains in the source code with non-existent alternatives ending in qjz9zk (known as domain substitution) How does this play with the HSTS preload list? That'd be quite the baby to throw out with the bathwater. edit: well, I don't see anything like "transport_security_state_static.json" in this list here, so maybe it's fine: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/resources/common/domain_substitution_list https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/re... edit2: The preload list seems to be excluded from domain substitution explicitly. Yay! https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/4bbfff4472a47bdc0e8cc26da65542bbcc6a8576/developer_utilities/update_helper.py#L127 https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/4bbfff447...
hartator 10y ago
+1 Will be my new default when home. Does it support uBlock Origin?
- eloston 10y ago
  Yes. I use uBlock Origin with it daily.
hartator 10y ago
Firefox is not really a good company anymore, they care more about politics than doing something awesome. Cf. the firing of their CEO.
- jshevek 10y ago
  Anyone who is unhappy with that decision might consider using Eich's browser, Brave. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser) https://brave.com/ https://brave.com/
- deleted 10y ago
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- Etzos 10y ago
  Two relatively minor nit picks about what you've said: 1. The company is Mozilla, not Firefox 2. They did not fire Eich, he stepped down amid the controversy and left to avoid any more conflict Now, while I can understand not being happy that they (Mozilla) did not step out in defense of their choice of Eich, I think it's a tad duplicitous to say they fired him.
- byuu 10y ago
  He was not fired. Straight from Mozilla themselves: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignation/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat... "On April 3, 2014 Brendan Eich voluntarily stepped down as CEO of Mozilla." He could have stayed if he wanted to. Yes, it would have hurt their brand if he did, and yes it should have. Because yes, I and many others care very much if the CEO of a product donates to strip a minority of equal rights. Thanks to people like Eich, for seven years me and my husband had to lie and check "single" on all of our federal and state forms. For seven years we had to worry about being denied hospital visitation should one of us fall ill. We had to worry about how we'd handle inheritance should one of us pass. And on and on. So yes, everyone is entitled to their own voice. Eich had a right to make that donation. And other people had a right to protest and boycott over it. Mozilla did not cave to the protests, so there was no free speech violation here.
floatingatoll 10y ago
It's unfortunate that valuable and useful privacy enhancements were combined with "wishlist"-level changes like "disable the tab close event in Javascript". While many may not like the uses of that event, it taints what otherwise could have been a "purely about privacy" fork of Chromium with non-privacy opinions.
- eloston 10y ago
  Yes, I've realized this and made an issue for this: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/38 https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/38 If you have the computing resources, you can easily take out the patch that does the "wishlist" changes you don't want.
  - floatingatoll 10y ago
    Neat! Thank you for considering it.
micro_softy 10y ago
You want enhanced privacy, control and transparency? Use a less complex program to retrieve web pages, with less features. (Or to post data.) Then use another program that cannot commmunicate with the network to view them. Remove all networking code and recompile. The complexity and feature set of the second program is up to the user. I find that many of the features of Chrome, Firefox, etc. are ones I do not need on a daily basis. As radical as this might sound in contrast to the conventional wisdom, if I had the influence of an organization such the ones producing Chrome or Firefox I'm quite sure that I could convince other users that they really don't need these features either. Such features usually come with an undisclosed or downplayed cost.
eloston 10y ago
Hey guys, I'm the developer. I was really surprised to see the number of stars on GitHub suddenly skyrocket, and I think I found why. Thank you all for your interest in my project! Feel free to make an issue (for questions, suggestions, or bug reports) or a pull request anytime. I might respond to a few more comments here before calling it a day.
- tonyplee 10y ago
  Good work! BTW, how easy is it to add FF + noscript type of features to chrome? --- Only enable JS on whitelist websites - all others are default disable unless user explicitly temporary or permanently enable it.
  - angry_octet 10y ago
    It is in the settings for Chrome. Settings->Advanced->Privacy->Content: Cookies->Keep until quit + exceptions you choose. Javascript->Deny all + exceptions you choose. When you browse there is a little icon in the address bar to whitelist a site. It is a bit of a pain at first but it makes things a lot safer. When you go incognito it will forget which sites you whitelisted at session end, so you are not enabling a site forever. I can also recommend the EFF Privacy Badger and the Cross Domain Request Filter extensions. CDRF needs to be updated to work in whitelist mode instead of blacklist mode, but it is still pretty cool. I also like Poper Blocker, but their telemetry mode is wrong. I'd really like an in-browser firewall which also blocked extensions by default. Something with an inspectable rule set. See also: Whitelist Manager, comes with source code. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cross-domain-request-filt/ggdfifojddnlfciogdedpldahnbnjmhd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cross-domain-reque... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pkehgijcmpdhfbdbbnkijodmdjhbjlgp?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pke... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/poper-blocker/bkkbcggnhapdmkeljlodobbkopceiche https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/poper-blocker/bkkb... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whitelist-manager/pocjkchlmhkjafdpmkklknmjhokobgmh https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whitelist-manager/... https://github.com/unindented/whitelist-manager https://github.com/unindented/whitelist-manager
bilbobeer 10y ago
Well there are two evils here, and we're be asked to choose which devil. I'm not even certain what solution there is? On the subject of Chrome, the answer is simple, never let a google product enter your home, device, or car. Never. Like Putin says "Google is NSA". On the subject of Firefox, it pisses me off, while on windows I can turn off 'updates', on say linux they have taken the option off the menu. I hate the updates on firefox, every time they update they remove my privacy preferences and reset to virgin. It's a pain in the arse. Then there is the firefox/mozilla maintenance engine that will update even when you tell Mozilla not to update. Again a pain. To think that Mozilla is not 'owned' by CIA/NSA like Google is a joke, just like Tor, all is owned. The question is, what is NOT owned? Windows ( Microsoft ) is owned, for years my solution was to only run Firefox 2.0, .. and stick with it, now they're on Firefox 49, and I feel like I'm running IE, to hell with Chrome, since day one, it was spyware sending data to NSA. The problem is that all high-tech is fed money from Federal Reserve Fiat trillions of dollars, and all that fake money feed's Oracle, Google, you name, and all is used to control and monitor every person on earth that uses or is near an electronic device. Privacy? Control? Transparency? Those words shall not be used in or around the mention of "Google".
- deleted 10y ago
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- deleted 10y ago
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echelon 10y ago
Is there a decent alternative to Chrome on Android? I am absolutely, nauseatingly sick of ads on mobile. Almost every news website I visit fills the browser with full screen ads that are infuriatingly difficult to close, change the scrolling behavior and viewport in an entirely unusable way, or try to launch Google Play Store links in the background. It's so annoying, and definitely to the point of being one of my top ten frustrations in life. The last time I used Firefox on mobile, it didn't integrate well with the phone UI. It felt clunky, the fonts were bad, and the viewport was wrong on many websites. I feel like Mozilla would do the most good in the world by spending more effort on a mobile browser. Mobile Chrome is flat out disgusting and abhorrent, but I haven't found anything else that's remotely as performant. It just sucks that Google refuses to allow extensions to protect their ad revenue. Are there any good alternative browsers that block shitty, intrusive, and entirely irrelevant mobile ads? Are they open source?
- laddie 10y ago
  Lightning on f-droid.
- ams6110 10y ago
  I use Firefox on Android, with uBlock Origin plugin. It's not perfect. There are deviations from the usual "Material Design" UI standards. Some sites don't render properly. It's slower. But it's worth it to me.
  - enobrev 10y ago
    I recently switched to Firefox on Android as well, specifically for uBlock Origin support, which has significantly improved browsing overall. Only issue I have is that default apps won't open for links. Otherwise I've been very happy with it.
    - Spakman 10y ago
      As I have only just learned higher up on this page, FF has an Android button in the URL bar to switch from, for example, a Youtube page to the Youtube native application. I was missing this too!
phantom_oracle 10y ago
Just as a post about Googles next generic Whatsapp-clone (with x-size-larger emojis) will get some 500+ upvotes, so too will a post like this get upwards of 200 votes. The HN community really is polarized ( or so it seems ) about these data-harvesting companies and issues like privacy/transparency. My thought then, is which group is larger here (privacy-aware vs. GooAppFace )
- RubyPinch 10y ago
  well there was a privacy bait-and-switch with Allo, wasn't there? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12547130 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12547130
- the_duke 10y ago
  I haven't seen a discussion with that many downvotes in a long, long time. Downvotes for no apparent reason. Either there are a lot of Google employees here on HN, or a lot of Google fanboys. Or both.
aceperry 10y ago
Very cool work. The Chromium source isn't easy to go through. I'm glad that it's open source though.
poshli 10y ago
I wonder how https://twitter.com/taviso https://twitter.com/taviso feels about yet another Chromium fork
xelxebar 10y ago
Tangentially related, but I'm curious why non-Firefox and non-Chromium browsers don't get more love. Started trying out alternative browsers a while ago--vimb, dwb, and luakit--and enjoyed their snappiness and customizability. Recently, however, I discovered uzbl and fell in love. It feels like everthing a shell for the web should be. I am unsure whether I should be worried about security pr something though. Would love to hear others' input!
Blackthorn 10y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this remove Safe Browsing? Not a good idea.
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  Yeah, seems like it: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/resources/common/patches/ungoogled-chromium/fix-building-without-safebrowsing.patch https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/re... and https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/commit/9163f6ed3c57f427ca5ea6b0f4f379a1cf85b796 https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/commit/9163f6e... and https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/resources/common/patches/inox-patchset/modify-default-prefs.patch#L17 https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/re... That is a very bad idea. I sympathize with the idea of the project, but please think twice before meddling in security things. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9779990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9779990 I filed an issue to explain the risks: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/50 https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/50
  - throwaway2048 10y ago
    I have no interest in my urls being sent to google for "security checking" (I am aware of the hashing)
    - lorenzhs 10y ago
      Then you can disable SafeBrowsing in Chromium's settings. My point is that disabling it without warning users about the risks of doing so is a bad idea. If you make an informed decision to disable it, I won't try to stop you.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    Then run your own safe browsing list. Connecting to a foreign company in a country that directly threatened you with invasion and relying on that for webbrowsing is not acceptable.
corv 10y ago
Is geolocation still using Google Location Service or has that been replaced with a different provider?
throw2016 10y ago
I remember when Chrome launched. It was extremely zippy, felt fast and lean and had a clean interface. Adoption had yet to take off. Those days it was all technical, google was perceived first as technically proficient and their agenda was to produce a fast and efficient browser. Many people could and did align with that. Now there are too many question marks about Google's motives and agendas and Chrome does not feel like a technical achievement, it feels burdened by all these agendas. Firefox is supposed to be the default go to when in doubt but why do you need such a large coporation to develop a fast and lean browser and here too there appears to be conflicting actions and agendas. Now more than ever we need clean open source projects with no agendas but because of growing complexity its becoming increasingly impossible for small groups to do, and I think we have not evolved open source structures to deal with this yet.
robbrown451 10y ago
This is awesome. One of my biggest gripes with Chrome is the inability to stop a rogue site from playing audio (on top of the music I'm listening to in another tab). CNN is one of the worst, as soon as I find the freaking video on the page and try to pause/mute it, the video controls slide away. Why can't Chrome allow me to just turn off audio on that tab? I have assumed Google doesn't give us that because it will interfere with their advertising or something. (maybe there is an extension that will help? I haven't found one)
- po1nter 10y ago
  > Why can't Chrome allow me to just turn off audio on that tab Well this feature is built into Chrome. Just right click the rogue tab and click "Mute Tab"
  - witty_username 10y ago
    Or click the audio icon on the tab that appears when the tab is playing audio.
nikcub 10y ago
Removing Google's binary blobs is mitigating one issue, but replacing it with an entire binary blog from an anonymous github user might be introducing new ones. On that note - can you tell us more about the project? ie. if you plan on keeping this updated long terms (i've watched a lot of promising chromium forks fade after an initial big splash), what your plans are, if you'll you accept contributions, how the binary distributions are built so we can verify the checksums, if you can tag the Chromium releases from Google so they can be verified, etc. I've had the idea of a chromium fork with privacy enhancements in the back of my mind for a while now (turns out a lot of people have) specifically to replace Tor Browser and/or have a lighter browser (without canvas, webgl, webrtc etc.) with better defaults (ie. no hardware access, location, notifications, cookies, history, etc.) for opening links, private browsing etc[1]. This may be a good base to work on - assuming you want to go beyond just "de-googlify" [1] I think there is a real need for an alternate browser that is lightweight[2] and has stricter privacy and security controls - with proper user segregation (ie. you really don't want to open random links from social media in the same browser session as where you're logging into your primary accounts). [2] ie. do to Chrome/Firefox what Firefox originally did to Netscape - and Chrome would be the better foundation to work on
- noir_lord 10y ago
  That kind of browser sounds useful, more so particulary on mobile devices Chrome/Android/Google is incredibly 'sticky' in that it tries to quietly log you in all the damn time.
  - Ruud-v-A 10y ago
    In what sense? I’m using Chrome Beta on Android, and I don’t recall being prompted to log in. Perhaps there was such a prompt during initial setup, but it has never tried to log me in quietly since.
    - _euvw 10y ago
      On a fresh Android, at first boot, it will ask you if you want to sync stuff. I always choose 'no'. I then proceed onto the settings app, into 'accounts'. There, I tap 'Google' and lo and behold: App-data, Calendar, Contacts, Google Fit Data and People details are all ticked to sync. I turn them off. Then I open the default browser. It logs me into Google, by default. I have to explicitly tell it not to. Google really really wants users to be logged in. That is my experience anyway.
TomAnthony 10y ago
The readme refers to "Google Host Detector" in the (original) Chromium source. Does anyone know the purpose of that?
- CannisterFlux 10y ago
  This patch https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/resources/common/patches/ungoogled-chromium/disable-google-host-detection.patch https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/re... seems to contain the details of what is removed. Most of it seems innocuous enough, except the tracking (?) headers appended on some Google sites.
vog 10y ago
My only issue is that GotoMeeting doesn't work with Chromium, only with Chrome. Otherwise I would already have removed Chrome a long time ago.
- Spakman 10y ago
  The GoToMeeting web client works in Chromium on Arch for me. Perhaps it's worth another go?
  - vog 10y ago
    I retry GoToMeeting wtih Chromium from time to time, using Debian/Testing just to be sure it isn't too old. Still, no luck. Most parts of the page do work, but there is no audio.
mikro2nd 10y ago
How is this different from Iridium browser?
piedradura 10y ago
I can't download the posts of forums like comp.lang.lisp, and I can't disable javascript in firefox with one click, so forget about any applaud from me. The browser I would like is nothing like this and I want a javascript free browsing experience in which content is important and display not so much, sorry css fans. Today web is about selling things and propagating noise and today browsers are a perfect tool to propagate more noise, linkbaits are the norm. The pityful technical enhacements of noise propagators is not what I am interested about. To be somewhat positive, anything Ungoogled sound to be a good thing, I am expecting the next interesting post to be about a very small company building the new web with a small browser whose code you can trust and check.
tszming 10y ago
For those who want to take up a challenge - fork a version of Chrome Android with extension (aka AdBlock) support.
- billyjobob 10y ago
  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.adblockplus.browser https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.adblockplu...
laktak 10y ago
Reminds me of "Iron" > a freeware web browser, and an implementation of Chromium by SRWare of Germany. It primarily aims to eliminate usage tracking and other privacy-compromising functionality that the Google Chrome browser includes. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron) First released 8 years ago: https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php
- blackphace 10y ago
  don't use Iron http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2009/12/iron.html http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2009/12/iron.ht...
doe88 10y ago
Great, the released binaries also seem to be compiled with proprietary_codecs=true, that means H264 videos are working (by default Chromium is not compiled with this flag).
koolba 10y ago
Is there a browser build or plugin extension that has a separate cookie jar for each tab that follows the tab? My ideal browser has zero persistence and each tab maintains its own cookies. Links opened as new tabs would share the parent's cookie jar, but separate tabs loaded to the same page could both be logged in at the same time.
- Zarkaos 10y ago
  I think you'll love ghost browser ;) https://ghostbrowser.com/ https://ghostbrowser.com/
  - koolba 10y ago
    From their page: > Each group of tabs, separated by color, is its own browsing session with its own cookie jar Yes! > Log in to one web site with many accounts simultaneously Yes! > Use with Mac OS X or Windows No! Would need a Linux build as well (actually that's the only one I need). Otherwise, looks cool though and will be keeping an eye on it. Thanks for sharing!
  - rplnt 10y ago
    All I get is 403.
  - okso 10y ago
    Looks interesting but I wouldn't trust a closed source browser.
  - sdfjkl 10y ago
    Sounded good, so I typed in an email address on their registration form. Then: > Create an Account Password (You will use this to log in to the browser to activate it) Uhm, no.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - rotten 10y ago
    Interesting, I can open that page in Chrome, but when I go to open it with Vivaldi, I get a 403.
dingdingdang 10y ago
On a purely utilitarian note: does this have auto-update functionality?
rer 10y ago
There's a huge discussion in this thread on tabs being slow, which made me wonder: is it necessary for browsers to have tabs? Windows desktop apps work great without tabs. Could life be better without tabs?
- estefan 10y ago
  You must be in your 20s or younger :-D
- kccqzy 10y ago
  There was a time when browsers had no tabs at all. I remember clearly Internet Explorer 6 had no tabs and Microsoft added it in version 7 to catch up with other browsers.
s0me0ne 10y ago
I dont use Chromium because I dont trust Google, but I use Vivaldi but not sure how much Googlization is in it for spying.

688 points by kawera 10y ago

eatbitseveryday 10y ago

Do extensions work with this build of the browser? I cannot seem to install Privacy Badger from the Chrome webstore.

eatbitseveryday 10y ago
Ah, you have to look at the FAQ[1] [1] https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/FAQ.md https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/FA...

Retr0spectrum 10y ago

"Googlification" has been my main reason for avoiding chrom{e,ium} until now. This could become my main browser. IMHO Chrome has a better track record than Firefox when it comes to security issues, but Firefox has better privacy.

dangoldin 10y ago
Have you tried Brave? I've been using it on the side and it's speedy and constantly improving.
- offa 10y ago
  Not OP, but I tried it some time ago, haven't checked back on it since. How is it privacy-wise, comparable to FF?
  - BrendanEich 10y ago
    No, Firefox (same as any of the big four) does not block ads or trackers by default. Brave does. We also have no-script and fingerprinting protection, currently opt-in by site (but we hope to engineer f.p. to on by default). Blocking 3rd party ads and trackers really speeds things up!
Scarbutt 10y ago
Isn't privacy a moot point when firefox's security history has been much worse than chrome? https://it.slashdot.org/submission/5553519/pwn2own-2016-wont-attack-firefox-cause-its-too-easy https://it.slashdot.org/submission/5553519/pwn2own-2016-wont...
- Karunamon 10y ago
  This probably got downvoted for snark, but it's true. The worst Chrome might do is help Google target ads better (if you don't change the defaults). The worst Firefox might do is get your machine pwned.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    > The worst Chrome might do is help Google target ads better (if you don't change the defaults). Chrome is the one running any x86 binary the website presents it with, only trying to run a static verification that it won't do anything evil. Chrome is far more at risk of pwning you (and NaCl sandbox breakouts have been quite common).
    - Karunamon 10y ago
      You mean "the website" which is accessed over HTTPS and more likely than not has its key pinned internally? Point is, Chrome falls every year at Pwn2Own just like every other browser, but only Firefox has been excluded because it's too easy.
      - kuschku 10y ago
        > You mean "the website" which is accessed over HTTPS and more likely than not has its key pinned internally? Any website can run NaCl code, you realize that? Even TIDAL uses it on its site for native playback. Even pages only accessed over HTTP.
- RubyPinch 10y ago
  something seems off about that Looking through the previous year's results, it doesn't seem like firefox has done especially poorly? And as noted in https://redd.it/45epd7 https://redd.it/45epd7, firefox multiprocess is sandboxed, and it does have security features that other browsers don't have so... IMO it doesn't seem like the reason given is quite genuine?

NeutronBoy 10y ago

While I applaud the effort that's gone into this, I urge people to consider (and use and contribute to!) Firefox. It's one of the last truly open-source browsers - both in terms of source code visibility (which Chrome(ium) has), and in terms of being able to contribute (which Chrome(ium) has not).

eth0up 10y ago
Any opinions on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Moon_%28web_browser%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Moon_%28web_browser%29 ?
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  No good reason to run that instead of Firefox. It looks like their main motivation to fork was to preserve XUL and XPCOM, but since Firefox doesn't plan to keep those, almost no addons will continue using them; every maintained addon will update to work with current Firefox. And using an unmaintained addon is dangerous.
  - criley2 10y ago
    >every maintained addon will update to work with current Firefox Those that can be will be, but I imagine entire categories, scores and scores of addons will be abandoned. So much of what people expect from Firefox addons is going away with no replacement in favor of basically light javascript web apps. Which is the point of the switch: dramatically reduce addon functionality in the interest of safety / security.
  - superkuh 10y ago
    Except for Mozilla's policy of trying to making Firefox race Chrome to be the best browser for the lowest common denominator. You can't even edit your addons in Firefox anymore. They have to be signed by Mozilla. > And using an unmaintained addon is dangerous. And this is the kind of thinking I'm talking about. Firefore/Chrome/etc are all about protecting tech ignorants from themselves rather than allowing adept users to do what they want.

nathancahill 10y ago

Great start. Although I think we need to reverse the trend of Chrome becoming the single browser web developers use. The amount of sites that unnecessarily[0] work only in Chrome is growing daily. And that's not even counting browser extensions. I think this, more than anything else, will determine if Chrome becomes the "Internet Explorer"[1] of this decade or not. Skipping testing in IE is one thing. Skipping testing in Firefox is a sin. [0] Unnecessarily, because cross-browser compatibility isn't hard, simply include CSS prefixes besides -webkit and use standardized JS APIs. [1] Internet Explorer, a term for a closed-source browser that creates non-standard APIs that developers jump on, forcing either users to use that browser, or other browsers to implement the non-standard APIs too.

technion 10y ago
The thing about "Internet Explorer", is that using IE Edge, I often run into websites that demand I "Upgrade" to Chrome and won't let me use them. Fudging the user agent however, allows that website to work perfectly fine. Not testing in IE is one thing. Presenting an nonintrusive message warning you don't test in IE is another. Paying money to advertise your website, then, when I click your link, greeting me with a condescending "IE Users are idiots" type message that doesn't let me proceed, doesn't make me buy your product.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  So much this. While on Firefox, Google only pulls that on you once, they constantly reoffer it to Edge users on a nearly weekly basis. And recently, they actually made the bar bigger and more obtrusive. I filed an issue on the Chromium bug tracker, they assigned someone to look into it, and of course, nothing has been said since.
  - sunnyps 10y ago
    That's because it's not a Chromium bug. You should file feedback with the product you're using, most (all?) Google products have a way of doing this.

zenincognito 10y ago

On Linux Mint I get Error:Dependency is not satisfiable:libavcodec-ffmpeg56(>=7.2.4)|libavcodec-ffmped-extra56(>=7:2.4) Suggestion - The repo does not provide install instructions. For a highly not tech privacy enthusiast, I find it difficult to install for linux.

JoshTriplett 10y ago
Never try to install a package intended for Debian or Ubuntu on another distribution that just happens to use .deb files, unless you have experience dealing with package dependency issues and similar problems. Either use a package intended for the distribution, or use a binary, or build from source. That looks like a version of libavcodec specific to one version of Ubuntu; that package will never work on Debian, another version of Ubuntu, or most non-Debian distributions.
- michel-slm 10y ago
  Can't wait for Flatpak or Snappy to make end-user binary distribution a breeze
  - striking 10y ago
    I can, they're not really all that great as an alternative. Use a better distro with a better packaging mechanism. Instead of inventing something new, use something that already exists.
    - jakebasile 10y ago
      Yes, technological process often comes from not inventing something new. I don't have strong opinions on snappy aside from the name being silly, but taking anti-NIH to the extreme is not how we advance the industry.
      - striking 10y ago
        It's not extreme at all. All you have to do is install a distro with a good packaging system. Arch is wonderful, and I've heard good things about Void and Gentoo. Imagine a package system where you could ask to download node.js, and you'll get the latest version. And that's it. Better yet, imagine having to build a package from source and installing it. You could do it by hand, leaving orphan files all over your system. Or you could write a PKGBUILD that handles installing dependencies, building, and packaging, all in one go. That's what running Arch feels like. Being able to install fresh popular packages, and being able to easily package your own. Try it sometime.

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lfx 10y ago

Is this browser expecting me to use TOR? Welcome and extensions pages on new tab pages wants me to go to http://www.9oo91e.qjz9zk/ http://www.9oo91e.qjz9zk/ domain. I'm not finding anything about that in repo readme page. This looks odd and suspicious. Because it's even blocks requests there -> http://imgur.com/a/UnMu8 http://imgur.com/a/UnMu8

Retr0spectrum 10y ago
That isn't a tor URL. I assume it's simply a lazy way of stopping requests to google services by replacing the domains with invalid ones. Edit: see https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/8dd86477d78df6e1b136374851920d493e3e974b/resources/common/domain_regex_list https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/8dd86477d...
- eloston 10y ago
  Yes, it is a lazy way of stopping requests. I also modified Iridium's "trk" scheme code to pick up domains ending in qjz9zk so I can notify the user.
  - comex 10y ago
    Does qjz9zk have any significance? It seems a little elaborate for a fake domain :)
    - RandomlyGen 10y ago
      It seems like the developer mashed the keyboard.
  - RubyPinch 10y ago
    Could probably make use of the .invalid TLD for this. Should definitely result in less confusion, and it provides something a bit more searchable if people are concerned - doubleclick([A-Za-z\-]*)\.net#60u613cl1c4\1.qjz9zk + doubleclick([A-Za-z\-]*)\.net#doubleclick\1.g.invalid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.invalid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.invalid

tomjakubowski 10y ago

> Replace many web domains in the source code with non-existent alternatives ending in qjz9zk (known as domain substitution) How does this play with the HSTS preload list? That'd be quite the baby to throw out with the bathwater. edit: well, I don't see anything like "transport_security_state_static.json" in this list here, so maybe it's fine: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/resources/common/domain_substitution_list https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/re... edit2: The preload list seems to be excluded from domain substitution explicitly. Yay! https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/4bbfff4472a47bdc0e8cc26da65542bbcc6a8576/developer_utilities/update_helper.py#L127 https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/4bbfff447...

hartator 10y ago

+1 Will be my new default when home. Does it support uBlock Origin?

eloston 10y ago
Yes. I use uBlock Origin with it daily.

hartator 10y ago

Firefox is not really a good company anymore, they care more about politics than doing something awesome. Cf. the firing of their CEO.

jshevek 10y ago
Anyone who is unhappy with that decision might consider using Eich's browser, Brave. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser) https://brave.com/ https://brave.com/
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Etzos 10y ago
Two relatively minor nit picks about what you've said: 1. The company is Mozilla, not Firefox 2. They did not fire Eich, he stepped down amid the controversy and left to avoid any more conflict Now, while I can understand not being happy that they (Mozilla) did not step out in defense of their choice of Eich, I think it's a tad duplicitous to say they fired him.
byuu 10y ago
He was not fired. Straight from Mozilla themselves: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignation/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat... "On April 3, 2014 Brendan Eich voluntarily stepped down as CEO of Mozilla." He could have stayed if he wanted to. Yes, it would have hurt their brand if he did, and yes it should have. Because yes, I and many others care very much if the CEO of a product donates to strip a minority of equal rights. Thanks to people like Eich, for seven years me and my husband had to lie and check "single" on all of our federal and state forms. For seven years we had to worry about being denied hospital visitation should one of us fall ill. We had to worry about how we'd handle inheritance should one of us pass. And on and on. So yes, everyone is entitled to their own voice. Eich had a right to make that donation. And other people had a right to protest and boycott over it. Mozilla did not cave to the protests, so there was no free speech violation here.

floatingatoll 10y ago

It's unfortunate that valuable and useful privacy enhancements were combined with "wishlist"-level changes like "disable the tab close event in Javascript". While many may not like the uses of that event, it taints what otherwise could have been a "purely about privacy" fork of Chromium with non-privacy opinions.

eloston 10y ago
Yes, I've realized this and made an issue for this: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/38 https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/38 If you have the computing resources, you can easily take out the patch that does the "wishlist" changes you don't want.
- floatingatoll 10y ago
  Neat! Thank you for considering it.

micro_softy 10y ago

You want enhanced privacy, control and transparency? Use a less complex program to retrieve web pages, with less features. (Or to post data.) Then use another program that cannot commmunicate with the network to view them. Remove all networking code and recompile. The complexity and feature set of the second program is up to the user. I find that many of the features of Chrome, Firefox, etc. are ones I do not need on a daily basis. As radical as this might sound in contrast to the conventional wisdom, if I had the influence of an organization such the ones producing Chrome or Firefox I'm quite sure that I could convince other users that they really don't need these features either. Such features usually come with an undisclosed or downplayed cost.

eloston 10y ago

Hey guys, I'm the developer. I was really surprised to see the number of stars on GitHub suddenly skyrocket, and I think I found why. Thank you all for your interest in my project! Feel free to make an issue (for questions, suggestions, or bug reports) or a pull request anytime. I might respond to a few more comments here before calling it a day.

tonyplee 10y ago
Good work! BTW, how easy is it to add FF + noscript type of features to chrome? --- Only enable JS on whitelist websites - all others are default disable unless user explicitly temporary or permanently enable it.
- angry_octet 10y ago
  It is in the settings for Chrome. Settings->Advanced->Privacy->Content: Cookies->Keep until quit + exceptions you choose. Javascript->Deny all + exceptions you choose. When you browse there is a little icon in the address bar to whitelist a site. It is a bit of a pain at first but it makes things a lot safer. When you go incognito it will forget which sites you whitelisted at session end, so you are not enabling a site forever. I can also recommend the EFF Privacy Badger and the Cross Domain Request Filter extensions. CDRF needs to be updated to work in whitelist mode instead of blacklist mode, but it is still pretty cool. I also like Poper Blocker, but their telemetry mode is wrong. I'd really like an in-browser firewall which also blocked extensions by default. Something with an inspectable rule set. See also: Whitelist Manager, comes with source code. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cross-domain-request-filt/ggdfifojddnlfciogdedpldahnbnjmhd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cross-domain-reque... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pkehgijcmpdhfbdbbnkijodmdjhbjlgp?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pke... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/poper-blocker/bkkbcggnhapdmkeljlodobbkopceiche https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/poper-blocker/bkkb... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whitelist-manager/pocjkchlmhkjafdpmkklknmjhokobgmh https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whitelist-manager/... https://github.com/unindented/whitelist-manager https://github.com/unindented/whitelist-manager

bilbobeer 10y ago

Well there are two evils here, and we're be asked to choose which devil. I'm not even certain what solution there is? On the subject of Chrome, the answer is simple, never let a google product enter your home, device, or car. Never. Like Putin says "Google is NSA". On the subject of Firefox, it pisses me off, while on windows I can turn off 'updates', on say linux they have taken the option off the menu. I hate the updates on firefox, every time they update they remove my privacy preferences and reset to virgin. It's a pain in the arse. Then there is the firefox/mozilla maintenance engine that will update even when you tell Mozilla not to update. Again a pain. To think that Mozilla is not 'owned' by CIA/NSA like Google is a joke, just like Tor, all is owned. The question is, what is NOT owned? Windows ( Microsoft ) is owned, for years my solution was to only run Firefox 2.0, .. and stick with it, now they're on Firefox 49, and I feel like I'm running IE, to hell with Chrome, since day one, it was spyware sending data to NSA. The problem is that all high-tech is fed money from Federal Reserve Fiat trillions of dollars, and all that fake money feed's Oracle, Google, you name, and all is used to control and monitor every person on earth that uses or is near an electronic device. Privacy? Control? Transparency? Those words shall not be used in or around the mention of "Google".

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echelon 10y ago

Is there a decent alternative to Chrome on Android? I am absolutely, nauseatingly sick of ads on mobile. Almost every news website I visit fills the browser with full screen ads that are infuriatingly difficult to close, change the scrolling behavior and viewport in an entirely unusable way, or try to launch Google Play Store links in the background. It's so annoying, and definitely to the point of being one of my top ten frustrations in life. The last time I used Firefox on mobile, it didn't integrate well with the phone UI. It felt clunky, the fonts were bad, and the viewport was wrong on many websites. I feel like Mozilla would do the most good in the world by spending more effort on a mobile browser. Mobile Chrome is flat out disgusting and abhorrent, but I haven't found anything else that's remotely as performant. It just sucks that Google refuses to allow extensions to protect their ad revenue. Are there any good alternative browsers that block shitty, intrusive, and entirely irrelevant mobile ads? Are they open source?

laddie 10y ago
Lightning on f-droid.
ams6110 10y ago
I use Firefox on Android, with uBlock Origin plugin. It's not perfect. There are deviations from the usual "Material Design" UI standards. Some sites don't render properly. It's slower. But it's worth it to me.
- enobrev 10y ago
  I recently switched to Firefox on Android as well, specifically for uBlock Origin support, which has significantly improved browsing overall. Only issue I have is that default apps won't open for links. Otherwise I've been very happy with it.
  - Spakman 10y ago
    As I have only just learned higher up on this page, FF has an Android button in the URL bar to switch from, for example, a Youtube page to the Youtube native application. I was missing this too!

phantom_oracle 10y ago

Just as a post about Googles next generic Whatsapp-clone (with x-size-larger emojis) will get some 500+ upvotes, so too will a post like this get upwards of 200 votes. The HN community really is polarized ( or so it seems ) about these data-harvesting companies and issues like privacy/transparency. My thought then, is which group is larger here (privacy-aware vs. GooAppFace )

RubyPinch 10y ago
well there was a privacy bait-and-switch with Allo, wasn't there? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12547130 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12547130
the_duke 10y ago
I haven't seen a discussion with that many downvotes in a long, long time. Downvotes for no apparent reason. Either there are a lot of Google employees here on HN, or a lot of Google fanboys. Or both.

aceperry 10y ago

Very cool work. The Chromium source isn't easy to go through. I'm glad that it's open source though.

poshli 10y ago

I wonder how https://twitter.com/taviso https://twitter.com/taviso feels about yet another Chromium fork

xelxebar 10y ago

Tangentially related, but I'm curious why non-Firefox and non-Chromium browsers don't get more love. Started trying out alternative browsers a while ago--vimb, dwb, and luakit--and enjoyed their snappiness and customizability. Recently, however, I discovered uzbl and fell in love. It feels like everthing a shell for the web should be. I am unsure whether I should be worried about security pr something though. Would love to hear others' input!

Blackthorn 10y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this remove Safe Browsing? Not a good idea.

lorenzhs 10y ago
Yeah, seems like it: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/resources/common/patches/ungoogled-chromium/fix-building-without-safebrowsing.patch https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/re... and https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/commit/9163f6ed3c57f427ca5ea6b0f4f379a1cf85b796 https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/commit/9163f6e... and https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/resources/common/patches/inox-patchset/modify-default-prefs.patch#L17 https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/re... That is a very bad idea. I sympathize with the idea of the project, but please think twice before meddling in security things. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9779990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9779990 I filed an issue to explain the risks: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/50 https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/50
- throwaway2048 10y ago
  I have no interest in my urls being sent to google for "security checking" (I am aware of the hashing)
  - lorenzhs 10y ago
    Then you can disable SafeBrowsing in Chromium's settings. My point is that disabling it without warning users about the risks of doing so is a bad idea. If you make an informed decision to disable it, I won't try to stop you.
- kuschku 10y ago
  Then run your own safe browsing list. Connecting to a foreign company in a country that directly threatened you with invasion and relying on that for webbrowsing is not acceptable.

corv 10y ago

Is geolocation still using Google Location Service or has that been replaced with a different provider?

throw2016 10y ago

I remember when Chrome launched. It was extremely zippy, felt fast and lean and had a clean interface. Adoption had yet to take off. Those days it was all technical, google was perceived first as technically proficient and their agenda was to produce a fast and efficient browser. Many people could and did align with that. Now there are too many question marks about Google's motives and agendas and Chrome does not feel like a technical achievement, it feels burdened by all these agendas. Firefox is supposed to be the default go to when in doubt but why do you need such a large coporation to develop a fast and lean browser and here too there appears to be conflicting actions and agendas. Now more than ever we need clean open source projects with no agendas but because of growing complexity its becoming increasingly impossible for small groups to do, and I think we have not evolved open source structures to deal with this yet.

robbrown451 10y ago

This is awesome. One of my biggest gripes with Chrome is the inability to stop a rogue site from playing audio (on top of the music I'm listening to in another tab). CNN is one of the worst, as soon as I find the freaking video on the page and try to pause/mute it, the video controls slide away. Why can't Chrome allow me to just turn off audio on that tab? I have assumed Google doesn't give us that because it will interfere with their advertising or something. (maybe there is an extension that will help? I haven't found one)

po1nter 10y ago
> Why can't Chrome allow me to just turn off audio on that tab Well this feature is built into Chrome. Just right click the rogue tab and click "Mute Tab"
- witty_username 10y ago
  Or click the audio icon on the tab that appears when the tab is playing audio.

nikcub 10y ago

Removing Google's binary blobs is mitigating one issue, but replacing it with an entire binary blog from an anonymous github user might be introducing new ones. On that note - can you tell us more about the project? ie. if you plan on keeping this updated long terms (i've watched a lot of promising chromium forks fade after an initial big splash), what your plans are, if you'll you accept contributions, how the binary distributions are built so we can verify the checksums, if you can tag the Chromium releases from Google so they can be verified, etc. I've had the idea of a chromium fork with privacy enhancements in the back of my mind for a while now (turns out a lot of people have) specifically to replace Tor Browser and/or have a lighter browser (without canvas, webgl, webrtc etc.) with better defaults (ie. no hardware access, location, notifications, cookies, history, etc.) for opening links, private browsing etc[1]. This may be a good base to work on - assuming you want to go beyond just "de-googlify" [1] I think there is a real need for an alternate browser that is lightweight[2] and has stricter privacy and security controls - with proper user segregation (ie. you really don't want to open random links from social media in the same browser session as where you're logging into your primary accounts). [2] ie. do to Chrome/Firefox what Firefox originally did to Netscape - and Chrome would be the better foundation to work on

noir_lord 10y ago
That kind of browser sounds useful, more so particulary on mobile devices Chrome/Android/Google is incredibly 'sticky' in that it tries to quietly log you in all the damn time.
- Ruud-v-A 10y ago
  In what sense? I’m using Chrome Beta on Android, and I don’t recall being prompted to log in. Perhaps there was such a prompt during initial setup, but it has never tried to log me in quietly since.
  - _euvw 10y ago
    On a fresh Android, at first boot, it will ask you if you want to sync stuff. I always choose 'no'. I then proceed onto the settings app, into 'accounts'. There, I tap 'Google' and lo and behold: App-data, Calendar, Contacts, Google Fit Data and People details are all ticked to sync. I turn them off. Then I open the default browser. It logs me into Google, by default. I have to explicitly tell it not to. Google really really wants users to be logged in. That is my experience anyway.

TomAnthony 10y ago

The readme refers to "Google Host Detector" in the (original) Chromium source. Does anyone know the purpose of that?

CannisterFlux 10y ago
This patch https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/resources/common/patches/ungoogled-chromium/disable-google-host-detection.patch https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/re... seems to contain the details of what is removed. Most of it seems innocuous enough, except the tracking (?) headers appended on some Google sites.

vog 10y ago

My only issue is that GotoMeeting doesn't work with Chromium, only with Chrome. Otherwise I would already have removed Chrome a long time ago.

Spakman 10y ago
The GoToMeeting web client works in Chromium on Arch for me. Perhaps it's worth another go?
- vog 10y ago
  I retry GoToMeeting wtih Chromium from time to time, using Debian/Testing just to be sure it isn't too old. Still, no luck. Most parts of the page do work, but there is no audio.

mikro2nd 10y ago

How is this different from Iridium browser?

piedradura 10y ago

I can't download the posts of forums like comp.lang.lisp, and I can't disable javascript in firefox with one click, so forget about any applaud from me. The browser I would like is nothing like this and I want a javascript free browsing experience in which content is important and display not so much, sorry css fans. Today web is about selling things and propagating noise and today browsers are a perfect tool to propagate more noise, linkbaits are the norm. The pityful technical enhacements of noise propagators is not what I am interested about. To be somewhat positive, anything Ungoogled sound to be a good thing, I am expecting the next interesting post to be about a very small company building the new web with a small browser whose code you can trust and check.

tszming 10y ago

For those who want to take up a challenge - fork a version of Chrome Android with extension (aka AdBlock) support.

billyjobob 10y ago
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.adblockplus.browser https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.adblockplu...

laktak 10y ago

Reminds me of "Iron" > a freeware web browser, and an implementation of Chromium by SRWare of Germany. It primarily aims to eliminate usage tracking and other privacy-compromising functionality that the Google Chrome browser includes. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron) First released 8 years ago: https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php

blackphace 10y ago
don't use Iron http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2009/12/iron.html http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2009/12/iron.ht...

doe88 10y ago

Great, the released binaries also seem to be compiled with proprietary_codecs=true, that means H264 videos are working (by default Chromium is not compiled with this flag).

koolba 10y ago

Is there a browser build or plugin extension that has a separate cookie jar for each tab that follows the tab? My ideal browser has zero persistence and each tab maintains its own cookies. Links opened as new tabs would share the parent's cookie jar, but separate tabs loaded to the same page could both be logged in at the same time.

Zarkaos 10y ago
I think you'll love ghost browser ;) https://ghostbrowser.com/ https://ghostbrowser.com/
- koolba 10y ago
  From their page: > Each group of tabs, separated by color, is its own browsing session with its own cookie jar Yes! > Log in to one web site with many accounts simultaneously Yes! > Use with Mac OS X or Windows No! Would need a Linux build as well (actually that's the only one I need). Otherwise, looks cool though and will be keeping an eye on it. Thanks for sharing!
- rplnt 10y ago
  All I get is 403.
- okso 10y ago
  Looks interesting but I wouldn't trust a closed source browser.
- sdfjkl 10y ago
  Sounded good, so I typed in an email address on their registration form. Then: > Create an Account Password (You will use this to log in to the browser to activate it) Uhm, no.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- rotten 10y ago
  Interesting, I can open that page in Chrome, but when I go to open it with Vivaldi, I get a 403.

dingdingdang 10y ago

On a purely utilitarian note: does this have auto-update functionality?

rer 10y ago

There's a huge discussion in this thread on tabs being slow, which made me wonder: is it necessary for browsers to have tabs? Windows desktop apps work great without tabs. Could life be better without tabs?

estefan 10y ago
You must be in your 20s or younger :-D
kccqzy 10y ago
There was a time when browsers had no tabs at all. I remember clearly Internet Explorer 6 had no tabs and Microsoft added it in version 7 to catch up with other browsers.

s0me0ne 10y ago

I dont use Chromium because I dont trust Google, but I use Vivaldi but not sure how much Googlization is in it for spying.