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AskHN: How much is Chrome and how much is Chromium?
I have ended up using Microsoft Edge v2 (Chromium)
a lot recently.
In part to attempt escape from Googles eco system.
Edge can now use Chrome Extensions without any problems, but that also bring problems.
If Google removes an extension from their store that now impacts Edge.
If there are vulnerabilities in an extension that now impact Edge.
Edge has its own extension store but there are very few extensions that live there
(so far)
What I have started to wonder if how much of Chrome or Edge is Chromium.
Is the extension hosting / executing code in Chromium?
Is AMP in Chromium?
What are the borders between the open source project and the closed source derivative?
- Black101 6y agoEdge is based on Chromium...
- cheeze 6y agoOP is aware of that, they are asking specifically where the line between Chromium and Chrome itself are.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- go561192 6y agoHave you tried Firefox with the 'Ublock Origin' add-on? No ads in years and snappy.
- bberenberg 6y agoI tried to use it for years as my "personal" browser while Chrome was for work. It would regularly cause the system as a whole to be slow when video (Twitch/Netflix) was playing. Switched to Vivaldi for personal and everything works smoothly so far.
- go561192 6y agoWhen did you stop using it?
- bberenberg 6y ago~1 week ago. It had been an ongoing issue for the past few months.
- DavideNL 6y agoOn which hardware?
- bberenberg 6y agoMacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017) 3.1 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3
- DavideNL 6y agoI have approximately the same Macbook (but from 2015), one issue i have is playing 4K .webm videos on Youtube. It doesn't matter which browser, it even happens when i download the video and play it in another player. My CPU will spike and the fans start blasting. 4K videos in mkv/H.264 format i can play fine though. The issue here is the hardware decoders capability; Depending on which browser you use, and whether your Macbook is connected to power, websites will send you a different video/codec/size. Here's a random post that sort of describes this: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/409764 https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/409764
- bberenberg 6y agoIt works fine in another browser. So I don't think it is a hardware issue? Is there a situation where Chrome/Vivaldi would be able to use hardware the FF wouldn't? And 90% of my time is spent on power (top left usb-c port).
- HappySweeney 6y agoI really wanted to like it, and the adblock story was good, but it did something wrong with some async js code, and sites like reddit would stop the world to wait until some tracker would time out (likely due to the adblock). This was a poor experience, to say the least.
- cassianoleal 6y agoI wonder how much something like SmartBlock [0] might help with that. [0] https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/03/23/introducing-smartblock/ https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/03/23/introducing-sma...
- an_opabinia 6y agoIf Firefox used macOS keychain for password management, sure. But that bug has been sitting there for 10 years or something.
- Shadonototro 6y ago> In part to attempt escape from Googles eco system. i'll never understand this argument google or microsoft, it's the same just use chromium at this point, or better ungoogled chromium https://ungoogled-software.github.io/ https://ungoogled-software.github.io/
- ForHackernews 6y agoUnlike Google, Microsoft is not primarily an ad-tech surveillance company. They're mostly a business software/services firm at this point. Maybe it's a minor distinction, but I think it's a real one.
- naavis 6y agoI think it's a huge distinction. Google's entire business is built on tracking users and serving ads based on that tracking data.
- ratorx 6y agoIt’s not their primary focus, but some Microsoft products do have tracking. E.g. Windows: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/general-privacy-settings-in-windows-10-7c7f6a09-cebd-5589-c376-7f505e5bf65a https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/general-privacy-... Is less of their business tracking users? Probably. However they do still track you.
- phendrenad2 6y agoThere's a massive difference between tracking your every web search, page visit, email keyword, location IRL, and tracking when your apps crash in an Operating System.
- ratorx 6y agoDid you visit the link? First sentence: > Windows generates a unique advertising ID for each user on a device, which app developers and advertising networks can then use for their own purposes, including providing more relevant advertising in apps.
- geofft 6y agoChromium is almost everything. The easiest way to test it is to grab a Chromium binary https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium and see what it feels like. The short answer is that it feels just like Chrome. :) The biggest difference is that there are no Chromium builds for security updates, nor is there a Chromium update server. (So if you're using it as your day-to-day browser, you probably want to be using nightly and updating it by hand.) The extension code is in Chromium. Flash was in Chrome, Widevine is in Chrome, etc. If you don't care about non-free extensions and DRM'd media, then you won't miss them. The Google account login/sync stuff is in Chrome. You probably won't miss it either.
- beganif 6y agoOne clear boundary is the use of Google APIs within Chrome [1]. Chromium derivatives must create and use their own equivalents for things such as Translation, Google Chrome Sync, Updates, etc. which are private Google services and not part of the open source Chromium project. For extensions, one Google-specific part within Chromium is the chrome.identity API [2] - without it you cannot sign-in to some extensions (e.g. Google Drive). Google has recently released an open-source version of this into Chromium [3] so the boundary you're asking about is becoming a bit more open and clear. [1] https://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/api-keys https://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/api-keys [2] https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/reference/identity/ https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/reference/ident... [3] https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/2704571 https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/27...
- tpmx 6y agohttps://www.theverge.com/2019/4/8/18300772/microsoft-google-services-removed-changed-chromium-edge-browser https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/8/18300772/microsoft-google-... may help a little.
- tyingq 6y ago"Is AMP in Chromium?" Only to the degree that Chromium supports standards AMP might use, like signed exchanges. Most of AMP isn't in the browser. It can appear that way, as Google presents search results differently for non-Chrome browsers. Similarly, some browsers actively strip AMP urls and replace them.
- 11235813213455 6y agosimilarly to your experience, I'm using Brave browser (based on chromium) since recently (after watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krB0enBeSiE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krB0enBeSiE), mostly attracted by the built-in adblocker
- syncbehind 6y agoI used to use Brave, but ever since they attempted to modify links without user-consent, I've since left them for Firefox + Edge (for those times I absolutely need a chromium browser).
- NetOpWibby 6y agoThis is my preference as well.
- 11235813213455 6y agoCongrats, you made me switch (back) to FF!