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Perhaps Chromium proper would be a good fit for you; it's got the polish of Chrome UI but lacks all of that crap that Google has started bundling with Chrome (s

by k3n 14y ago

Perhaps Chromium proper would be a good fit for you; it's got the polish of Chrome UI but lacks all of that crap that Google has started bundling with Chrome (sync, etc.). The hardest part is finding the downloads, since they go to great lengths to prevent anyone from easily obtaining a compiled binary.

mayanksinghal 14y ago
> since they go to great lengths to prevent anyone from easily obtaining a compiled binary. 1. Googled "Download Chromium" 2. Clicked on http://download-chromium.appspot.com/ http://download-chromium.appspot.com/ 3. Unzip and Install.
- k3n 14y ago
  EDIT: Apparently it is official / sanctioned, thanks for the correction. PREVIOUS: Yeah I saw that, but that's not an official or sanctioned site or binary, and thus didn't feel comfortable openly suggesting it. There's no way to guarantee that the contents haven't been modified or that they're even kept updated.
  - dhconnelly 14y ago
    http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium
    - k3n 14y ago
      Ah, missed that! Thanks.
  - mayanksinghal 14y ago
    As sibling says, it is mentioned on official site (hence sanctioned?), and it was binary for me (tested on Linux and Mac). > There's no way to guarantee that the contents haven't been modified or that they're even kept updated. There is no solution to that but to compile things ourselves anyway.
magicalist 14y ago
Chromium includes sync. Basically the biggest parts you'll be missing are a pdf reader and flash. pdf.js has a chromium extension to make it easy to use there (though depending on the document, it won't necessarily feel faster and more minimal), but if you need flash for something, Chrome is one of the better ways to keep it updated these days. You can always run Chromium and open up Chrome for Flash, though.
- k3n 14y ago
  Oh wow, it has sync? I thought all of the proprietary Google features were kept in Chrome; I'm not sure how sync could've been implemented in an agnostic browser... Thanks for the further info though, it's been awhile since I've updated my Chromium.
  - jmillikin 14y ago
    Chromium and Chrome are identical, but Chrome includes non-Google proprietary plugins (Flash and a PDF renderer).
  - myrd 14y ago
    There's a barebones sync server implementation written in Python included in the Chromium source repository. You could run your own, if you wanted.
- keeperofdakeys 14y ago
  You can copy the libpdf library from a Chrome install to a Chromium install, since they are the same.
- ynniv 14y ago
  The Chromium build from http://www.freesmug.org/chromium http://www.freesmug.org/chromium seems to have the PDF viewer as well as the Flash plugin.
night815 14y ago
http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium
keeperofdakeys 14y ago
The stuff that is included with Chrome shouldn't have any impact on performance, the webkit and v8 engines are the same as that of Chromium. For Google, they do all their development on Chromium (which is an open source project), then apply a few patches and a new logo on top to get Chrome. It isn't some great conspiracy that they don't distribute Chromium binaries, it simply isn't their end product.
dfc 14y ago
Pretty easy: apt-get install chromium
- calebegg 14y ago
  Perhaps you were being tongue-in-cheeck, but I do feel the need to point out that the grandparent said they were using Safari, implying that they're on OS X.
mistercow 14y ago
>all of that crap that Google has started bundling with Chrome (sync, etc.). Why do people keep bagging on sync? Personally, I'm a fan of not having to reïmport my bookmarks and reënter all of my autosaved passwords every time I reformat or change computers.
- k3n 14y ago
  Because I've never used it and yet I'm hounded to "give it a try" on what seems like a weekly basis.
  - mistercow 14y ago
    OK, yeah I see how that would be annoying.
    - k3n 14y ago
      It's kind of an extension of the annoyance from not using G+ and yet having it crammed down my throat; it's the same tactic just with a little less gusto.
- mehrzad 14y ago
  Privacy is one reason, but not a very good one. For the "Open Tabs" sync, privacy is a very good reason.
  - magicalist 14y ago
    You can set it to encrypt everything, including open tabs. Since it's encrypted locally, the sync server can't see anything.
- magic_haze 14y ago
  I actually did try it out when they first introduced it, but when I installed Chrome on a different machine and tried to get my settings there, the sync server got totally confused and re-enabled all sorts of settings that I'd disabled (like syncing my entire history and removing my cookie-blocking exceptions.) Agreed, this was a long time back, so I actually decided to give it another try today, but now it seems to have a problem with 2FA... I gave it both my master and app-specific password, but it consistently comes back saying the app-specific password is wrong. Has anyone else noticed this problem?

by k3n 14y ago

mayanksinghal 14y ago

> since they go to great lengths to prevent anyone from easily obtaining a compiled binary. 1. Googled "Download Chromium" 2. Clicked on http://download-chromium.appspot.com/ http://download-chromium.appspot.com/ 3. Unzip and Install.

k3n 14y ago
EDIT: Apparently it is official / sanctioned, thanks for the correction. PREVIOUS: Yeah I saw that, but that's not an official or sanctioned site or binary, and thus didn't feel comfortable openly suggesting it. There's no way to guarantee that the contents haven't been modified or that they're even kept updated.
- dhconnelly 14y ago
  http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium
  - k3n 14y ago
    Ah, missed that! Thanks.
- mayanksinghal 14y ago
  As sibling says, it is mentioned on official site (hence sanctioned?), and it was binary for me (tested on Linux and Mac). > There's no way to guarantee that the contents haven't been modified or that they're even kept updated. There is no solution to that but to compile things ourselves anyway.

magicalist 14y ago

Chromium includes sync. Basically the biggest parts you'll be missing are a pdf reader and flash. pdf.js has a chromium extension to make it easy to use there (though depending on the document, it won't necessarily feel faster and more minimal), but if you need flash for something, Chrome is one of the better ways to keep it updated these days. You can always run Chromium and open up Chrome for Flash, though.

k3n 14y ago
Oh wow, it has sync? I thought all of the proprietary Google features were kept in Chrome; I'm not sure how sync could've been implemented in an agnostic browser... Thanks for the further info though, it's been awhile since I've updated my Chromium.
- jmillikin 14y ago
  Chromium and Chrome are identical, but Chrome includes non-Google proprietary plugins (Flash and a PDF renderer).
- myrd 14y ago
  There's a barebones sync server implementation written in Python included in the Chromium source repository. You could run your own, if you wanted.
keeperofdakeys 14y ago
You can copy the libpdf library from a Chrome install to a Chromium install, since they are the same.
ynniv 14y ago
The Chromium build from http://www.freesmug.org/chromium http://www.freesmug.org/chromium seems to have the PDF viewer as well as the Flash plugin.

night815 14y ago

http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium

keeperofdakeys 14y ago

The stuff that is included with Chrome shouldn't have any impact on performance, the webkit and v8 engines are the same as that of Chromium. For Google, they do all their development on Chromium (which is an open source project), then apply a few patches and a new logo on top to get Chrome. It isn't some great conspiracy that they don't distribute Chromium binaries, it simply isn't their end product.

dfc 14y ago

Pretty easy: apt-get install chromium

calebegg 14y ago
Perhaps you were being tongue-in-cheeck, but I do feel the need to point out that the grandparent said they were using Safari, implying that they're on OS X.

mistercow 14y ago

>all of that crap that Google has started bundling with Chrome (sync, etc.). Why do people keep bagging on sync? Personally, I'm a fan of not having to reïmport my bookmarks and reënter all of my autosaved passwords every time I reformat or change computers.

k3n 14y ago
Because I've never used it and yet I'm hounded to "give it a try" on what seems like a weekly basis.
- mistercow 14y ago
  OK, yeah I see how that would be annoying.
  - k3n 14y ago
    It's kind of an extension of the annoyance from not using G+ and yet having it crammed down my throat; it's the same tactic just with a little less gusto.
mehrzad 14y ago
Privacy is one reason, but not a very good one. For the "Open Tabs" sync, privacy is a very good reason.
- magicalist 14y ago
  You can set it to encrypt everything, including open tabs. Since it's encrypted locally, the sync server can't see anything.
magic_haze 14y ago
I actually did try it out when they first introduced it, but when I installed Chrome on a different machine and tried to get my settings there, the sync server got totally confused and re-enabled all sorts of settings that I'd disabled (like syncing my entire history and removing my cookie-blocking exceptions.) Agreed, this was a long time back, so I actually decided to give it another try today, but now it seems to have a problem with 2FA... I gave it both my master and app-specific password, but it consistently comes back saying the app-specific password is wrong. Has anyone else noticed this problem?