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
> a lighter browser (without canvas, webgl, webrtc etc.)
Please do not do this. Webgl and Webrtc are fundamental technologies needed to efficiently do basic activities like process an image or send sound data to another user.
I am all for a "lighter" browser, by removing UI, removing dev tools, etc. Get rid of the stuff that's not required to make a web page work well. But WebGL and WebRTC are cornerstone technologies for the web to thrive. WebRTC is critical for allowing open source software to thrive in particular (allows apps that don't need a central server) and WebGL is critical in particular for web software to compete in the AR/VR age. We need 100% browser support on these two APIs, and we need it yesterday.
I realize these technologies are not currently doing anything for you. I sympathize. But we need them in browsers now so that we can use them in 10 years.
Please, please, please jetsam other parts of the ship before you cut those features.
>Please do not do this. Webgl and Webrtc are fundamental technologies needed to efficiently do basic activities like process an image or send sound data to another user.
>fundamental technologies
>basic activities
>process an image or send sound data to another user.
We must live in different worlds, those are not "basic" or "fundamental" to me. I'm not sure I've ever used either.
>the AR/VR age
You're overstating how important these technologies are. Maybe in 10 years but only time will tell.
IPFS already has a peer-to-peer chat room that can share messages, files, and streaming videos without a central server. This means users have a way to share content without worrying that it could fall into the wrong hands or be censored by big entities like corporations or governments. And it all depends on tech like WebRTC.
That kind of infrastructure is crucial to the freedom of information and therefore the freedom of global citizens. You will not realize we need it until it's too late.
The revolution will not be televised, it will not be in your news feed, it will happen in the streets and in the minds of citizens, and we need to prepare ourselves with the proper tools for that time, because it is coming sooner than you think.
I would be interesting to make a browser where these things are by default unloaded plugins with the ability to detect when they are needed. Then the best of both worlds are present... no? Some people wish they didn't have to pay the costs for these things because they never use them.
I'm sorry that you've never used them, but I most certainly have for various projects. I can't use - much less recommend - any product that breaks stuff that I've built both personally and professionally.
Hold your horses! The introduction of dev tools was one of the best things to happen to browsers. Removing them would take away opportunity from a lot of people in learning web development, and would also lead to websites having more bugs.
Is there something particular about your mom I should take away here? Or moms in general? Or women? Or older people?
My mom, like yours, would have no use for dev tools -- because she's just not interested. And neither would my brother, but my grandma would have loved learning about this stuff if she had lived long enough, and my kids have discovered this "secret hacker mode" all on their own and are delighted.
Chill out. My mom is the most common non-technical person I deal with. No need or reason to assume sexism, ageism, motherism, or any other isms. The only take away from my comment should have been "Hey, non technical people don't need developer extensions".
Yes, I do that more often than not. Specially during that time of the year when you need to do the tax declaration and use the utterly broken government websites. One common problem that I have to fix is that the Brazilian government likes to issue their own SSL certificates which are not accepted by any browser, therefore I keep the requests tab open and look for any Ajax requests that was blocked due to SSL errors.
You can hardly see source in Chrome without the dev tools. The Ctrl+U "functionality" just generates huge HTML document (a table filled with spans to highlight syntax) and it is very slow on large websites (both generating it and rendering I'd assume).
Source HTML even, so whatever javascript changed is not there.
But for fun and laughs I saved js-generated source of a pretty big web page, opened it, and then pressed CTRL-U. It took 50 seconds to generate and render the source view. No wonder...
> document.getElementsByTagName('*').length
< 956632
(should be fun to go deeper and save this html, and then go ctrl+u on that)
edit: Tried it and it's been choking on the next "level" for the past 9 minutes. The tab is at over 1.5GB memory, I'm going to kill it.
Usually, a new tab opens whose address is "view-source:$URL_OF_PREV_PAGE". Obviously, it's not terribly hard to replicate by hand, but that's weird. As has been said since the days of old, "it worked on my machine".
I'd actually like a 'light' web browser, made for nothing else than 'web browsing'...
Some time ago I tried Lynx and I liked the idea, It was waay simpler that I'd like, but in the other hand I feel that interfaces made for web are always crippled compared with desktop interfaces (from G docs vs MS office, up to clara.io compared to blender).
For web browsing I think that something between a browser and Lynx is something that I would use, most of the time I am interested in the content more than the aesthetics or the pixel perfect alignment of visuals... and if I was interested in an application (that requires the newest tech in browsers) most of the time there is a better tool for desktop.
> I realize these technologies are not currently doing anything for you. I sympathize. But we need them in browsers now so that we can use them in 10 years.
I don't see a problem with this - most browsers with "other" or reduced functionality are niche products at best. They're relative cheap to provide and they don't affect the greater web itself.
If you get right down to it, what you need to make a web page work is HTML. That's it - WebGL and WebRTC are interesting, but the web isn't going to die if one browser doesn't include them. Lynx still works fine without them, after all.
I'm seeing a lot of alarmism from people who I'm guessing have vested interest in those products, completely forgetting that Chrome, Firefox, Explorer and Safari (in no particular order) are what drive the current state of the modern browser.
Two years ago a Chrome dev commented on these points[1] and claimed that Chrome "does not spy on you" and that the only binary blobs are codecs and a PDF reader, not any other secret browser code. He/she states the fear is misplaced and unwarranted. Any thoughts on this?
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.
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.
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.
> 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
We are building one [1]. Contributions are welcome! In the meanwhile, the ungoogled-chromium project in combination with uMatrix is I think a great way to transition away from Chromium.
"Anonymous github user" part is very true. I am not about to install random binaries from the internet. I wish there was reputable org behind the builds. I'll stick with google binaries unless somebody knows a good alternative.
What are your thoughts or impression of OPERA? It has private browsing etc.
They really restructured their whole browser several years ago specifically to switch to the chromium platform. I apologize I didn't mean to butt in I was just curious.
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