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Key points: > Much of what appears to be Chrome (or Chromium) functionality is, in truth, provided by servers in Google's data centers. These include bookmark

by lqet 6y ago

Key points: > Much of what appears to be Chrome (or Chromium) functionality is, in truth, provided by servers in Google's data centers. These include bookmark synchronization, the safe-browsing feature, search suggestions, spell-checking, and more. > On January 15, the Chromium blog carried this brief notice that, as of March 15, non-Chrome builds of Chromium would lose access to these APIs. > Anticipating this, distributors are already wondering whether packaging Chromium is still worth the effort. From a first read, I guessed it is time to install Firefox. However, I noticed that I: 1) don't sync bookmarks, 2) don't care for the safe-browsing feature (I understand it is the annoying message that a website is "not safe"?), 3) have my own spell-checking service. So what exactly is meant by "search suggestions"? Is Google actually disabling access to their search API? Why wouldn't this affect Firefox? Why would Google even consider doing this? And, I guess that 4) I can still use another search engine. So, does anyone know what's hidden under "and more"? Because even if all the features from above were missing, I fail to see why this should result in Chromium being removed from distros. It's still a functional, reliable and very fast browser. I am additionally confused because Chromium without these features is more attractive to me than the current version.

jedimastert 6y ago
I'm guessing that means personalized search autocomplete from the url bar.
Artlav 6y ago
I find this seriously confusing too. None of these sound like major, or even all that useful, features, and yet they talk about "considering whether there is any value in a crippled version of Chromium". What makes it crippled?
hyper_reality 6y ago
I think the article somewhat misconstrues the reasons why maintainers are thinking of dropping support for packaging Chromium. Maintaining the Chromium package is an unusually laborious task, with a lot of releases, and huge compile times. It's simply a gigantic codebase with the order of millions of lines of code, and there are only a couple of people (at best) in each distro dedicating time to keep track of the latest changes. The Chromium in Debian has been developing a growing list of security issues as it falls behind the latest versions https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=972134 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=972134 Google's forced removal of features from Chromium may just be the straw that broke the camel's back. I see other comments on HN and LWN question the maintainers' judgement, without realising how many resources it takes to package Chromium for distros.
indymike 6y ago
Not a single one of these features matter to me, either. Probably the only feature I'll miss is automatically installing my Chrome apps when I log in, but it gets used so infrequently.
BenjiWiebe 6y ago
Safe browsing is an incredibly useful thing. Anyone can report a phishing website, and if it actually is, it gets added to the safe browsing blocklist. Then when anyone gets tricked into clicking a link to the phishing website they get a big red warning, no matter how closely the phishing website matches the real website.
hpoe 6y ago
I'll throw out there that I did switch from Chrome to FF back when Quantum came out and haven't looked back since. It's snappier than chrome, seems to hog less resources and I find their containers feature a godsend for seperating my work and personal accounts. So I'd encourage it, I've been with FF for a couple years now and I love it.
- acomjean 6y ago
  I agree. Firefox is my main browser. I use the others (mainly for testing). It’s gotten better and better and no longer find “debuging JavaScript is enough better in chrome” to do that . I also really like the way the dev tools handle css grid.
tyingq 6y ago
Chrome's sync does sync more than just bookmarks. You can paste "chrome://sync-internals/" into the url bar to see the list of synced stuff, it's in a table on the far right, or click the "data" tab. The synced autofill, for example, is useful to me.
- pixl97 6y ago
  "The synced autofill, for example, is useful to me." Yet another reason to remember to use private mode when browsing at 'home'.
lucideer 6y ago
> Why would Google even consider doing this? The author's extrapolations seem implausible. Bookmark synchronization is a non-issue as this is something any bundler of Chromium would have to build & maintain themselves no matter what engine they bundled. So Google excluding it is irrelevant. But for Safe-Browsing and Search Suggestions, not only are these sources of data/insight/revenue for Google, but more oddly: Google Safe-Browsing is used by Firefox and other browsers, and Search Suggestions is provided by ALL search engines that have such a feature to ANY browser integrating their search. Excluding these from Google's own open-source engine while non-Google engines continue to use them seems unlikely.

by lqet 6y ago

jedimastert 6y ago

I'm guessing that means personalized search autocomplete from the url bar.

Artlav 6y ago

I find this seriously confusing too. None of these sound like major, or even all that useful, features, and yet they talk about "considering whether there is any value in a crippled version of Chromium". What makes it crippled?

hyper_reality 6y ago

I think the article somewhat misconstrues the reasons why maintainers are thinking of dropping support for packaging Chromium. Maintaining the Chromium package is an unusually laborious task, with a lot of releases, and huge compile times. It's simply a gigantic codebase with the order of millions of lines of code, and there are only a couple of people (at best) in each distro dedicating time to keep track of the latest changes. The Chromium in Debian has been developing a growing list of security issues as it falls behind the latest versions https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=972134 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=972134 Google's forced removal of features from Chromium may just be the straw that broke the camel's back. I see other comments on HN and LWN question the maintainers' judgement, without realising how many resources it takes to package Chromium for distros.

indymike 6y ago

Not a single one of these features matter to me, either. Probably the only feature I'll miss is automatically installing my Chrome apps when I log in, but it gets used so infrequently.

BenjiWiebe 6y ago

Safe browsing is an incredibly useful thing. Anyone can report a phishing website, and if it actually is, it gets added to the safe browsing blocklist. Then when anyone gets tricked into clicking a link to the phishing website they get a big red warning, no matter how closely the phishing website matches the real website.

hpoe 6y ago

I'll throw out there that I did switch from Chrome to FF back when Quantum came out and haven't looked back since. It's snappier than chrome, seems to hog less resources and I find their containers feature a godsend for seperating my work and personal accounts. So I'd encourage it, I've been with FF for a couple years now and I love it.

acomjean 6y ago
I agree. Firefox is my main browser. I use the others (mainly for testing). It’s gotten better and better and no longer find “debuging JavaScript is enough better in chrome” to do that . I also really like the way the dev tools handle css grid.

tyingq 6y ago

Chrome's sync does sync more than just bookmarks. You can paste "chrome://sync-internals/" into the url bar to see the list of synced stuff, it's in a table on the far right, or click the "data" tab. The synced autofill, for example, is useful to me.

pixl97 6y ago
"The synced autofill, for example, is useful to me." Yet another reason to remember to use private mode when browsing at 'home'.

lucideer 6y ago

> Why would Google even consider doing this? The author's extrapolations seem implausible. Bookmark synchronization is a non-issue as this is something any bundler of Chromium would have to build & maintain themselves no matter what engine they bundled. So Google excluding it is irrelevant. But for Safe-Browsing and Search Suggestions, not only are these sources of data/insight/revenue for Google, but more oddly: Google Safe-Browsing is used by Firefox and other browsers, and Search Suggestions is provided by ALL search engines that have such a feature to ANY browser integrating their search. Excluding these from Google's own open-source engine while non-Google engines continue to use them seems unlikely.