19 ms·

Google Chromium, sans integration with Google

325 points by niksmac 6y ago

daakus 6y ago
Would be great to understand what communication with Google servers can be turned off via setting changes rather than code changes, and what cannot.
- est31 6y ago
  Even basic things like auto-suggestions in the URL bar can't be turned off any more. A while ago there used to be an option for it but it was removed. So when you enter an URL it's automatically sent to Google as you type.
  - exikyut 6y ago
    !!! Scrambles to check settings It's over in chrome://settings/syncSetup now.
  - pvg 6y ago
    The setting is 'Autocomplete searches and URLs', just type it in the settings search box. It's still there.
    - est31 6y ago
      Indeed it's still present. Thanks for pointing it out!
  - cma 6y ago
    At some point the new tab page stopped being replaceable something less distracting/compulsive like your own custom url. Your homepage can only apply at startup. It isn't something that should have to be an extension.
  - daakus 6y ago
    If the default is set to something else, say DuckDuckGo, it'll go there instead right?
- 0xy 6y ago
  Chrome sends X-Client-Data headers to DoubleClick and other Google-owned properties, which can be used for tracking purposes. There's no way to disable this behavior. The header contains a "low entropy" random ID generated by Chrome upon installation. Coupled with other data, this can be used to track users even after clearing cookies and in private mode.
  - rossjudson 6y ago
    There's a rather precise description of X-Client-Data at https://www.google.com/chrome/privacy/whitepaper.html#variations https://www.google.com/chrome/privacy/whitepaper.html#variat... Note that you can reset at any time with the “--reset-variation-state” command line flag. "Coupled with other data", anybody can track anything.
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      I use the GDPR definition for what “other data” means in an online data collection context. Even then, legal hoop-jumping causes those definitions to be gamed, to the detriment of user privacy, and to the boon of site operators and advertisers. Damian George, Kento Reutimann, Aurelia Tamò-Larrieux, GDPR bypass by design? Transient processing of data under the GDPR, International Data Privacy Law, Volume 9, Issue 4, November 2019, Pages 285–298, https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipz017 https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipz017 Michael Veale, Reuben Binns, Jef Ausloos, When data protection by design and data subject rights clash, International Data Privacy Law, Volume 8, Issue 2, May 2018, Pages 105–123, https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipy002 https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipy002 Frederik J. Zuiderveen Borgesius, Singling out people without knowing their names – Behavioural targeting, pseudonymous data, and the new Data Protection Regulation, Computer Law & Security Review, Volume 32, Issue 2, 2016, Pages 256-271, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2015.12.013 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2015.12.013
- NiekvdMaas 6y ago
  You can disable most of the telemetry with command line switches like --disable-background-networking and --disable-sync, but some things like field trials and doubleclick fingerprinting cannot be excluded in regular Chrome/Chromium AFAIK.
  - frank2 6y ago
    The flag --disable-background-networking might break some sites: https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/issues/1320 https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/issues/1320
behnamoh 6y ago
FWIW, Microsoft Edge on macOS is a better Chrome than Google Chrome. It's based on Chromium and has shown superior performance on my machine. Plus, it has a nicer settings menu than Google Chrome. *no affiliation with MS.
- longtom 6y ago
  But it sends your stuff to MS instead?
  - behnamoh 6y ago
    No need to sign in to your MS account.
    - esperent 6y ago
      They will surely still send all the data whether you are signed in or not. Maybe it won't be linked to a particular account, but it's a fair bet that it will still be linked to _you_. It's well-publicized that Facebook has shadow accounts for people who are not logged in to their service, and it's reasonable to assume that other large companies do this too.
- dartharva 6y ago
  It's worse than Google in terms of telemetry and spying.
- SquareWheel 6y ago
  Not trying to dogpile (I didn't vote on your comment), but you would be trading an open-source browser for a closed-source one. Personally I'd stick to Chromium or Firefox for that reason. Both are still good browsers.
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  Is there an equivalent project like in OP for the Edge build of Chromium? I really want the Vertical Tabs Edge is supposed to have soon. Or maybe it already has them? I haven’t found a great extension for Chrome that works well with proper window and cursor focus when opening new tabs and not interfering with system keyboard shortcuts when using it cross-platform. I use Sidewise for now, which is actually okay but has some rough edges. I’m hoping the solution in Edge might actually be a Edge extension instead of Edge functionality, so that I can maybe even adapt to run under Chrome or Firefox.
ornornor 6y ago
At that point why not use Firefox and help fight Chrome’s engine dominance?
- est31 6y ago
  I keep a copy of Chromium around to test stuff I develop or for the occasional website that doesn't work in Firefox. Ungoogled chromium importance will increase with the continued decline of Firefox's absolute and relative market shares.
  - Orou 6y ago
    Had to check because I thought if anything Firefox's market share had been increasing the past couple of years, but you're absolutely right. I wonder why Firefox isn't performing better in the browser market - it's arguably better than it's ever been.
    - yoavmmn 6y ago
      I have two guesses: 1. Extensions - almost anyone have some kind of extension installed, and Chrome absolutely wins in that category. that prevents people from switching over to Firefox. Personally I know people that switched to Firefox only after I showed them the extensions they us or an alternative exists on Firefox. 2. Advertisement - Google have a lot more advertising resources than Mozilla. For example, every new Android phone with Google Play Services ships with Google products already installed including Chrome (sometimes as the only browser). It's not unfounded to think that most people will use the same browser they're using in their smartphone.
      - meitham 6y ago
        Google amplifies these security conferences where Chrome comes out as a more secure browser than the rest, this leads a lot of corporate IT to enforce Chrome as the default browser on work PC. Some people completely switched their home browser to Chrome just because they like to use one browser at home and work!
siraben 6y ago
I use ungoogled-chromium for sites that don't behave well on Firefox (due to needing third-party cookies and so on). I find the extension[0] allowing for the installation and updating of Google Chrome App Store extensions to be immensely valuable. [0] https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store
- Jaruzel 6y ago
  Thank you for this link! Not being able to easily install extensions into ungoogled-chromium was the main reason I've not switched to it as my main browser.
  - cookiengineer 6y ago
    > Not being able to easily install extensions into ungoogled-chromium You can. 1. Download the .crx file(s) 2. Rename to .zip, unpack 3. Visit "chrome://extensions/" page 4. Select Developer Mode, then Load unpacked, select folder of previous extracted zip file 5. There you go.
    - oarsinsync 6y ago
      Easy: 0. Visit store, find extension, hit install Not as easy: Do the same, but now add 5 more steps.
      - ta17711771 6y ago
        What is the point of your comment, besides pointing out that laziness/ignorance is why most people don't have their privacy respected when using technology?
    - Jaruzel 6y ago
      Which is a complete ball-ache when you use as many different machines as I do.
praveen9920 6y ago
Is there any similar service for Gmail, integration only with mail servers? Similar client-side experience, No ads, no data collection. etc It could be first step for de-googlifying
- Jakob 6y ago
  I’m curious because I have never heard from someone preferring the Gmail client-side experience. Can you elaborate? While certainly usable, isn’t the client-side experience one of the negative points of Gmail? (generic icons all over the place, resizing/reloading behavior erratic, load time, settings discovery hard, …)
  - praveen9920 6y ago
    It's more of a personal preference at this point. I got accustomed to the experience.
  - mattlondon 6y ago
    I found the web UIs of things like protonmail fastmail and tutanota to be really poor in comparison to Gmail. I just couldn't get on with them and ultimately was why I chose not to use their services. They felt incredibly basic and clunky - search was poor, things like labelling etc were difficult/not present, I couldn't do a top-bottom window split, I can't remember but I think even the concept of archiving was not there. The crap UIs really really put me off when looking for a non-google alternative email service. In the end I found that Zoho mail had the best modern web UI that is comparable to Gmail (it is not amazing in terms of usability and has a lot of fussiness going on that is distracting) and very reasonable pricing for custom domains with a catch-all and so have been using them ever since. The Zoho app is also acceptable.
  - snazz 6y ago
    It has very nice Vim-like keyboard shortcuts, a good UI for setting up advanced filtering rules, it loads instantly (on my computer, at least; this has gotten much better recently), and text editing features like Smart Compose and the Googlified spellchecker beat everything else. I can see why you might not like it if you're used to Outlook or Thunderbird, but it meets my needs perfectly. It also integrates with Google Keep, Tasks, and Calendar, which is nice. (Some people seem to seriously underestimate how good Smart Compose is---it's learned all of my favorite combinations of words and I can basically write entire emails and documents by typing a few letters and then mashing the tab key to accept all of the autocompletions)
LeoPanthera 6y ago
Available in Homebrew Cask, if Mac people want to try it out. I have it installed almost exclusively to use the UniFi web UI, which is buggy as hell on Safari.
- tgv 6y ago
  For macOS users without brew (or not familiar with the command line), you can find all(?) releases here: https://github.com/macchrome/macstable/releases https://github.com/macchrome/macstable/releases
- amedvednikov 6y ago
  Not very secure, since anyone can upload the binaries there. https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-binaries https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-bin... > These binaries are provided by anyone who are willing to build and submit them. Because these binaries are not necessarily reproducible, authenticity cannot be guaranteed.
beefee 6y ago
ungoogled-chromium has absolutely zero telemetry. It's the gold standard for browsers and a rare breath of fresh air in the polluted world of modern software. Firefox, in contrast, is nowhere close. It includes trackers, "pings", "experiments", ads, sponsored search engines, bundled extensions, and phone-homes. Despire Mozilla's open-source and privacy rhetoric, its level of bundled spyware is not very different from any other commercial software product.
- SquareWheel 6y ago
  >its level of bundled spyware is not very different from any other commercial software product. Maybe that is more a sign of how necessary it is, rather than indication that Mozilla is somehow an evil company. "Phoning home" let's them know which features are being used and need to be maintained, and where the bugs are occurring. Experiments are how Firefox tests improvements in a controlled way. Sponsored search engines are how Firefox can exist at all.
  - ta17711771 6y ago
    > Sponsored search engines are how Firefox can exist at all. Mozilla used to do just fine in making their browser before the hundreds of millions of "Google doesn't want an antitrust suit" dollars............
    - fyfy18 6y ago
      Most of the revenue for the Mozilla Foundation comes from bundling Google as the default browser, and has done for a long time. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/
      - aspenmayer 6y ago
        I think what parent poster was referring to is not the source of the money but the reason: Much like Intel has cross-licensed patents with AMD in order to keep their competition viable enough to stave off monopoly and anticompetitive business practices accusations, it could be argued that Google’s promotional search agreements with Mozilla for Firefox are more to Google’s benefit than to Firefox’s.
keyle 6y ago
I use this as an alternate browser to my usual (safari) and for dev. It's brilliant, highly recommended.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ferros 6y ago
Excuse my ignorance, but apart from defaulting to Google search engine, what are the negatives and hidden google effects of a vanilla chrome install?
- deminature 6y ago
  Chrome has metric gathering, experimentation, account management, bookmark and data syncing and a bunch of other calls to Google's services whether you're using Google Search or not. Some people would prefer their browser is not leaking so much information to Google, but perhaps appreciate the quality of the underlying Chromium application.
  - ta17711771 6y ago
    Indeed. Mozilla needs to fork it and be done dumping money and manhours into Gecko-based insecurity.
a_imho 6y ago
What is the difference between Chrome and Chromium exactly if the latter needs to be ungoogled?
- paco3346 6y ago
  Chrome includes proprietary (licensed) binary blobs such as certain DRM features similar to widevine.
  - granshaw 6y ago
    I think OP’s question was why do we need an “ungoogled chromium” in the first place, shouldn’t stock Chromium already be ungoogled? And if it’s not, in practice how is it then different from Chrome?
- j-james 6y ago
  Google Chrome is closed source, Chromium is open source under a three-clause BSD license.
holri 6y ago
what is the difference to Chromium for example in Debian?
sicromoft 6y ago
Does this, or any other distribution of chromium, have an auto-update mechanism similar to chrome's? I dislike having to manually install updates.
- nnt38 6y ago
  https://chromium.woolyss.com/#updaters https://chromium.woolyss.com/#updaters The portable versions on that site are just preconfigured chromium updaters (called chrlauncher) https://chromium.woolyss.com/f/chrlauncher-win64-stable-ungoogled.zip https://chromium.woolyss.com/f/chrlauncher-win64-stable-ungo...
niksmac 6y ago
Safari is my day to day browser and I have Pi-Hole installed. Less trackers less bandwidth consumption; I am happy.
- DavideNL 6y ago
  Pi-Hole only blocks entire hosts - which is great for devices (/apps) on the network that cannot install adblockers. But for a webbrowser you'll need an extension to block many additional trackers/scripts.
bmn__ 6y ago
Also see: https://iridiumbrowser.de/about https://iridiumbrowser.de/about https://github.com/iridium-browser https://github.com/iridium-browser
- whydoyoucare 6y ago
  ^^^ This. Fantastic stuff and I love it so far!
alibert 6y ago
I'm sorry but I'm not going to install a browser built by random people. > NOTE: These binaries are provided by anyone who are willing to build and submit them. Because these binaries are not necessarily reproducible, authenticity cannot be guaranteed; In other words, there is always a non-zero probability that these binaries may have been tampered with.
- nnt38 6y ago
  Same, love the concept, hate the distribution
- mbakke 6y ago
  There are packages available for popular GNU/Linux distributions based on the openSUSE build service, which are not uploaded by random people. If your distro is unsupported, you can install Nix or Guix and use that to install ungoogled-chromium.
  - floatingatoll 6y ago
    Are the distributions reviewing the patchset against Google Chromium upstream and affirming that, to the best of their knowledge, no additional threats will be delivered to those who choose to use this? The risk isn't in who compiles it. The risk is in the patches themselves coming from an untrusted third party, and being presented as a complete fork with significant functionality changes in support of the author's beliefs. If it was "here's a minimal patchset that's rebased against Chromium upstream, here's instructions to checkout Chromium and rebase our patchset onto it" then that would be possible to trust. This isn't that.
    - mbakke 6y ago
      I'm not sure I understand the question. ungoogled-chromium is "a minimal patchset that's rebased against Chromium upstream, here's instructions to checkout Chromium and rebase our patchset onto it". https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/tree/master/patches https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/tree/master/pa... Apart from the patches, UC does two more things: substitute all "google.com" (and some other) domains with nonsense like "9oo91e.qjz9zk" in order to catch regressions; and prunes all binary files that are distributed with the original Chromium source. The repository comes with a script that can do all three things. It is not a fork of Chromium, if that is what you were thinking. I can't speak for other distributions, but for GNU Guix I have reviewed the patches and read the diffs for every new version. I assume most other packagers do the same.
jerrygoyal 6y ago
I am a regular user of both chrome and ungoogled chromium browser. here are my insights: even though both are fork of chromium, UC consume much less ram as compared to chrome. a youtube page will take ~450mb in chrome but same page will take ~280mb (tested personally). You can install all chrome extensions in UC, there's also a seperate extension for updating these extensions. you can't "sync" data in UC (bookmarks, passwords, cards etc). there's no straight forward way to update UC.
- rattray 6y ago
  Wow. Have others experienced this too? Jerrygoyal, any other pros or cons so far?
floatingatoll 6y ago
This title is misleading. There are significantly more patches here than just "remove integration with Google".
pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
Non-technical Chrome users who cannot "un-Google" can at least set shortcuts to clear cookies, history, etc. Go to chrome://settings/searchEngines Click "Add" and instead of typing a search engine URL, enter chrome://settings/clearBrowserData#c For "Keyword" one can enter a single character, e.g., "c". Select options, e.g., Advanced tab, Time range: All time, check all boxes. (The boxes will remain checked on the next invocation.) Now, whenever the user wants to clear the browser data, she can just type "c" in the Address Bar. No need to keep typing "chrome://settings" or keeping a tab open for settings. User-agent can be changed through Developer Tools, without the need for extensions, however other headers are not accessible. Technical users who avoid using extensions can use a localhost proxy to delete headers, including Cookie where it is unnecessary. Despite all the user fingerprinting that is done using HTTP headers such as User-Agent, relatively few sites actually require User-Agent and other headers. For almost all sites, the only requirement to successfully retrieve the page is the Host and, often enough, Connection headers. Specific resource requests can also be blocked in Developer Tools without installing extensions as a "poor man's ad blocker". Using Developer Tools, dummy Javascript resources can be loaded from local sources to remove undesirable page characteristics. However neither ad-blockers nor stripping headers prevents all the fingerprinting. If one is not happy with browser-based tracking, then using a "modern browser" with so many advanced features to retrieve a page of text is a trade-off, and, arguably, overkill.

325 points by niksmac 6y ago

Would be great to understand what communication with Google servers can be turned off via setting changes rather than code changes, and what cannot.

est31 6y ago
Even basic things like auto-suggestions in the URL bar can't be turned off any more. A while ago there used to be an option for it but it was removed. So when you enter an URL it's automatically sent to Google as you type.
- exikyut 6y ago
  !!! Scrambles to check settings It's over in chrome://settings/syncSetup now.
- pvg 6y ago
  The setting is 'Autocomplete searches and URLs', just type it in the settings search box. It's still there.
  - est31 6y ago
    Indeed it's still present. Thanks for pointing it out!
- cma 6y ago
  At some point the new tab page stopped being replaceable something less distracting/compulsive like your own custom url. Your homepage can only apply at startup. It isn't something that should have to be an extension.
- daakus 6y ago
  If the default is set to something else, say DuckDuckGo, it'll go there instead right?
0xy 6y ago
Chrome sends X-Client-Data headers to DoubleClick and other Google-owned properties, which can be used for tracking purposes. There's no way to disable this behavior. The header contains a "low entropy" random ID generated by Chrome upon installation. Coupled with other data, this can be used to track users even after clearing cookies and in private mode.
- rossjudson 6y ago
  There's a rather precise description of X-Client-Data at https://www.google.com/chrome/privacy/whitepaper.html#variations https://www.google.com/chrome/privacy/whitepaper.html#variat... Note that you can reset at any time with the “--reset-variation-state” command line flag. "Coupled with other data", anybody can track anything.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    I use the GDPR definition for what “other data” means in an online data collection context. Even then, legal hoop-jumping causes those definitions to be gamed, to the detriment of user privacy, and to the boon of site operators and advertisers. Damian George, Kento Reutimann, Aurelia Tamò-Larrieux, GDPR bypass by design? Transient processing of data under the GDPR, International Data Privacy Law, Volume 9, Issue 4, November 2019, Pages 285–298, https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipz017 https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipz017 Michael Veale, Reuben Binns, Jef Ausloos, When data protection by design and data subject rights clash, International Data Privacy Law, Volume 8, Issue 2, May 2018, Pages 105–123, https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipy002 https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipy002 Frederik J. Zuiderveen Borgesius, Singling out people without knowing their names – Behavioural targeting, pseudonymous data, and the new Data Protection Regulation, Computer Law & Security Review, Volume 32, Issue 2, 2016, Pages 256-271, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2015.12.013 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2015.12.013
NiekvdMaas 6y ago
You can disable most of the telemetry with command line switches like --disable-background-networking and --disable-sync, but some things like field trials and doubleclick fingerprinting cannot be excluded in regular Chrome/Chromium AFAIK.
- frank2 6y ago
  The flag --disable-background-networking might break some sites: https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/issues/1320 https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/issues/1320

behnamoh 6y ago

FWIW, Microsoft Edge on macOS is a better Chrome than Google Chrome. It's based on Chromium and has shown superior performance on my machine. Plus, it has a nicer settings menu than Google Chrome. *no affiliation with MS.

longtom 6y ago
But it sends your stuff to MS instead?
- behnamoh 6y ago
  No need to sign in to your MS account.
  - esperent 6y ago
    They will surely still send all the data whether you are signed in or not. Maybe it won't be linked to a particular account, but it's a fair bet that it will still be linked to _you_. It's well-publicized that Facebook has shadow accounts for people who are not logged in to their service, and it's reasonable to assume that other large companies do this too.
dartharva 6y ago
It's worse than Google in terms of telemetry and spying.
SquareWheel 6y ago
Not trying to dogpile (I didn't vote on your comment), but you would be trading an open-source browser for a closed-source one. Personally I'd stick to Chromium or Firefox for that reason. Both are still good browsers.
aspenmayer 6y ago
Is there an equivalent project like in OP for the Edge build of Chromium? I really want the Vertical Tabs Edge is supposed to have soon. Or maybe it already has them? I haven’t found a great extension for Chrome that works well with proper window and cursor focus when opening new tabs and not interfering with system keyboard shortcuts when using it cross-platform. I use Sidewise for now, which is actually okay but has some rough edges. I’m hoping the solution in Edge might actually be a Edge extension instead of Edge functionality, so that I can maybe even adapt to run under Chrome or Firefox.

ornornor 6y ago

At that point why not use Firefox and help fight Chrome’s engine dominance?

est31 6y ago
I keep a copy of Chromium around to test stuff I develop or for the occasional website that doesn't work in Firefox. Ungoogled chromium importance will increase with the continued decline of Firefox's absolute and relative market shares.
- Orou 6y ago
  Had to check because I thought if anything Firefox's market share had been increasing the past couple of years, but you're absolutely right. I wonder why Firefox isn't performing better in the browser market - it's arguably better than it's ever been.
  - yoavmmn 6y ago
    I have two guesses: 1. Extensions - almost anyone have some kind of extension installed, and Chrome absolutely wins in that category. that prevents people from switching over to Firefox. Personally I know people that switched to Firefox only after I showed them the extensions they us or an alternative exists on Firefox. 2. Advertisement - Google have a lot more advertising resources than Mozilla. For example, every new Android phone with Google Play Services ships with Google products already installed including Chrome (sometimes as the only browser). It's not unfounded to think that most people will use the same browser they're using in their smartphone.
    - meitham 6y ago
      Google amplifies these security conferences where Chrome comes out as a more secure browser than the rest, this leads a lot of corporate IT to enforce Chrome as the default browser on work PC. Some people completely switched their home browser to Chrome just because they like to use one browser at home and work!

siraben 6y ago

I use ungoogled-chromium for sites that don't behave well on Firefox (due to needing third-party cookies and so on). I find the extension[0] allowing for the installation and updating of Google Chrome App Store extensions to be immensely valuable. [0] https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store

Jaruzel 6y ago
Thank you for this link! Not being able to easily install extensions into ungoogled-chromium was the main reason I've not switched to it as my main browser.
- cookiengineer 6y ago
  > Not being able to easily install extensions into ungoogled-chromium You can. 1. Download the .crx file(s) 2. Rename to .zip, unpack 3. Visit "chrome://extensions/" page 4. Select Developer Mode, then Load unpacked, select folder of previous extracted zip file 5. There you go.
  - oarsinsync 6y ago
    Easy: 0. Visit store, find extension, hit install Not as easy: Do the same, but now add 5 more steps.
    - ta17711771 6y ago
      What is the point of your comment, besides pointing out that laziness/ignorance is why most people don't have their privacy respected when using technology?
  - Jaruzel 6y ago
    Which is a complete ball-ache when you use as many different machines as I do.

praveen9920 6y ago

Is there any similar service for Gmail, integration only with mail servers? Similar client-side experience, No ads, no data collection. etc It could be first step for de-googlifying

Jakob 6y ago
I’m curious because I have never heard from someone preferring the Gmail client-side experience. Can you elaborate? While certainly usable, isn’t the client-side experience one of the negative points of Gmail? (generic icons all over the place, resizing/reloading behavior erratic, load time, settings discovery hard, …)
- praveen9920 6y ago
  It's more of a personal preference at this point. I got accustomed to the experience.
- mattlondon 6y ago
  I found the web UIs of things like protonmail fastmail and tutanota to be really poor in comparison to Gmail. I just couldn't get on with them and ultimately was why I chose not to use their services. They felt incredibly basic and clunky - search was poor, things like labelling etc were difficult/not present, I couldn't do a top-bottom window split, I can't remember but I think even the concept of archiving was not there. The crap UIs really really put me off when looking for a non-google alternative email service. In the end I found that Zoho mail had the best modern web UI that is comparable to Gmail (it is not amazing in terms of usability and has a lot of fussiness going on that is distracting) and very reasonable pricing for custom domains with a catch-all and so have been using them ever since. The Zoho app is also acceptable.
- snazz 6y ago
  It has very nice Vim-like keyboard shortcuts, a good UI for setting up advanced filtering rules, it loads instantly (on my computer, at least; this has gotten much better recently), and text editing features like Smart Compose and the Googlified spellchecker beat everything else. I can see why you might not like it if you're used to Outlook or Thunderbird, but it meets my needs perfectly. It also integrates with Google Keep, Tasks, and Calendar, which is nice. (Some people seem to seriously underestimate how good Smart Compose is---it's learned all of my favorite combinations of words and I can basically write entire emails and documents by typing a few letters and then mashing the tab key to accept all of the autocompletions)

LeoPanthera 6y ago

Available in Homebrew Cask, if Mac people want to try it out. I have it installed almost exclusively to use the UniFi web UI, which is buggy as hell on Safari.

tgv 6y ago
For macOS users without brew (or not familiar with the command line), you can find all(?) releases here: https://github.com/macchrome/macstable/releases https://github.com/macchrome/macstable/releases
amedvednikov 6y ago
Not very secure, since anyone can upload the binaries there. https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-binaries https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-bin... > These binaries are provided by anyone who are willing to build and submit them. Because these binaries are not necessarily reproducible, authenticity cannot be guaranteed.

beefee 6y ago

ungoogled-chromium has absolutely zero telemetry. It's the gold standard for browsers and a rare breath of fresh air in the polluted world of modern software. Firefox, in contrast, is nowhere close. It includes trackers, "pings", "experiments", ads, sponsored search engines, bundled extensions, and phone-homes. Despire Mozilla's open-source and privacy rhetoric, its level of bundled spyware is not very different from any other commercial software product.

SquareWheel 6y ago
>its level of bundled spyware is not very different from any other commercial software product. Maybe that is more a sign of how necessary it is, rather than indication that Mozilla is somehow an evil company. "Phoning home" let's them know which features are being used and need to be maintained, and where the bugs are occurring. Experiments are how Firefox tests improvements in a controlled way. Sponsored search engines are how Firefox can exist at all.
- ta17711771 6y ago
  > Sponsored search engines are how Firefox can exist at all. Mozilla used to do just fine in making their browser before the hundreds of millions of "Google doesn't want an antitrust suit" dollars............
  - fyfy18 6y ago
    Most of the revenue for the Mozilla Foundation comes from bundling Google as the default browser, and has done for a long time. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      I think what parent poster was referring to is not the source of the money but the reason: Much like Intel has cross-licensed patents with AMD in order to keep their competition viable enough to stave off monopoly and anticompetitive business practices accusations, it could be argued that Google’s promotional search agreements with Mozilla for Firefox are more to Google’s benefit than to Firefox’s.

keyle 6y ago

I use this as an alternate browser to my usual (safari) and for dev. It's brilliant, highly recommended.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ferros 6y ago

Excuse my ignorance, but apart from defaulting to Google search engine, what are the negatives and hidden google effects of a vanilla chrome install?

deminature 6y ago
Chrome has metric gathering, experimentation, account management, bookmark and data syncing and a bunch of other calls to Google's services whether you're using Google Search or not. Some people would prefer their browser is not leaking so much information to Google, but perhaps appreciate the quality of the underlying Chromium application.
- ta17711771 6y ago
  Indeed. Mozilla needs to fork it and be done dumping money and manhours into Gecko-based insecurity.

a_imho 6y ago

What is the difference between Chrome and Chromium exactly if the latter needs to be ungoogled?

paco3346 6y ago
Chrome includes proprietary (licensed) binary blobs such as certain DRM features similar to widevine.
- granshaw 6y ago
  I think OP’s question was why do we need an “ungoogled chromium” in the first place, shouldn’t stock Chromium already be ungoogled? And if it’s not, in practice how is it then different from Chrome?
j-james 6y ago
Google Chrome is closed source, Chromium is open source under a three-clause BSD license.

holri 6y ago

what is the difference to Chromium for example in Debian?

sicromoft 6y ago

Does this, or any other distribution of chromium, have an auto-update mechanism similar to chrome's? I dislike having to manually install updates.

nnt38 6y ago
https://chromium.woolyss.com/#updaters https://chromium.woolyss.com/#updaters The portable versions on that site are just preconfigured chromium updaters (called chrlauncher) https://chromium.woolyss.com/f/chrlauncher-win64-stable-ungoogled.zip https://chromium.woolyss.com/f/chrlauncher-win64-stable-ungo...

niksmac 6y ago

Safari is my day to day browser and I have Pi-Hole installed. Less trackers less bandwidth consumption; I am happy.

DavideNL 6y ago
Pi-Hole only blocks entire hosts - which is great for devices (/apps) on the network that cannot install adblockers. But for a webbrowser you'll need an extension to block many additional trackers/scripts.

bmn__ 6y ago

Also see: https://iridiumbrowser.de/about https://iridiumbrowser.de/about https://github.com/iridium-browser https://github.com/iridium-browser

whydoyoucare 6y ago
^^^ This. Fantastic stuff and I love it so far!

alibert 6y ago

I'm sorry but I'm not going to install a browser built by random people. > NOTE: These binaries are provided by anyone who are willing to build and submit them. Because these binaries are not necessarily reproducible, authenticity cannot be guaranteed; In other words, there is always a non-zero probability that these binaries may have been tampered with.

nnt38 6y ago
Same, love the concept, hate the distribution
mbakke 6y ago
There are packages available for popular GNU/Linux distributions based on the openSUSE build service, which are not uploaded by random people. If your distro is unsupported, you can install Nix or Guix and use that to install ungoogled-chromium.
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  Are the distributions reviewing the patchset against Google Chromium upstream and affirming that, to the best of their knowledge, no additional threats will be delivered to those who choose to use this? The risk isn't in who compiles it. The risk is in the patches themselves coming from an untrusted third party, and being presented as a complete fork with significant functionality changes in support of the author's beliefs. If it was "here's a minimal patchset that's rebased against Chromium upstream, here's instructions to checkout Chromium and rebase our patchset onto it" then that would be possible to trust. This isn't that.
  - mbakke 6y ago
    I'm not sure I understand the question. ungoogled-chromium is "a minimal patchset that's rebased against Chromium upstream, here's instructions to checkout Chromium and rebase our patchset onto it". https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/tree/master/patches https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/tree/master/pa... Apart from the patches, UC does two more things: substitute all "google.com" (and some other) domains with nonsense like "9oo91e.qjz9zk" in order to catch regressions; and prunes all binary files that are distributed with the original Chromium source. The repository comes with a script that can do all three things. It is not a fork of Chromium, if that is what you were thinking. I can't speak for other distributions, but for GNU Guix I have reviewed the patches and read the diffs for every new version. I assume most other packagers do the same.

jerrygoyal 6y ago

I am a regular user of both chrome and ungoogled chromium browser. here are my insights: even though both are fork of chromium, UC consume much less ram as compared to chrome. a youtube page will take ~450mb in chrome but same page will take ~280mb (tested personally). You can install all chrome extensions in UC, there's also a seperate extension for updating these extensions. you can't "sync" data in UC (bookmarks, passwords, cards etc). there's no straight forward way to update UC.

rattray 6y ago
Wow. Have others experienced this too? Jerrygoyal, any other pros or cons so far?

floatingatoll 6y ago

This title is misleading. There are significantly more patches here than just "remove integration with Google".

pwdisswordfish2 6y ago

Non-technical Chrome users who cannot "un-Google" can at least set shortcuts to clear cookies, history, etc. Go to chrome://settings/searchEngines Click "Add" and instead of typing a search engine URL, enter chrome://settings/clearBrowserData#c For "Keyword" one can enter a single character, e.g., "c". Select options, e.g., Advanced tab, Time range: All time, check all boxes. (The boxes will remain checked on the next invocation.) Now, whenever the user wants to clear the browser data, she can just type "c" in the Address Bar. No need to keep typing "chrome://settings" or keeping a tab open for settings. User-agent can be changed through Developer Tools, without the need for extensions, however other headers are not accessible. Technical users who avoid using extensions can use a localhost proxy to delete headers, including Cookie where it is unnecessary. Despite all the user fingerprinting that is done using HTTP headers such as User-Agent, relatively few sites actually require User-Agent and other headers. For almost all sites, the only requirement to successfully retrieve the page is the Host and, often enough, Connection headers. Specific resource requests can also be blocked in Developer Tools without installing extensions as a "poor man's ad blocker". Using Developer Tools, dummy Javascript resources can be loaded from local sources to remove undesirable page characteristics. However neither ad-blockers nor stripping headers prevents all the fingerprinting. If one is not happy with browser-based tracking, then using a "modern browser" with so many advanced features to retrieve a page of text is a trade-off, and, arguably, overkill.