this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
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Honest question. What's wrong with chromium? I understand why google/ms and other corpo flavours are bad, but why is base chromium bad
The problem is the lack of diversity. Google controls Chromium and almost all browsers are Chromium based so Google controlls the supported web features of almost all browsers, giving them the power to decide which web features are supported on the internet and which aren't. They use this for example to push their own file formats for the web instead of better alternatlives. Remember when everyone was mad that ublock origin wouldn't work on Chromium browsers anymore? Same thing. They get money from ads so they make it harder to block them. Google shouldn't have that much power over the web.
No, Google no controls Chromium, despite Chromium as is use a lot or Google APIs. But Chromium is FOSS and because of this a lot of Chromiums are "degoogled" or parcial "degoogled" leaving some APIs as Option in the settings (Vivaldi permits even to quit the API for the Chrome Store in the settings page, if you don't want extension from there). The difference in Chrome itself, EDGE, Opera and others, is that they all use a lot of own tracking APIs above the default from Chromium.
Sure it's FOSS, but who's actually working on the codebase? That's right, google employees. Good luck submitting patch if your patch runs counter to google's interests.
Not a problem, in Vivaldi there a lot of patches against Google interests. Even Google can do nothing if the devs of other companies eliminate the tracking APIs from Chromium, precisely because it's FOSS an even Google can't revert it and can't do nothing against modified forks. There are several intends in the past, with idle tracking, FloC, and some others, also cutting of Google sync for others than Chrome, discriminative Browsersniffing in some websites to block Vivaldi and others. Nothing of this worked. Vivaldi is a small european cooperative with few devs, but which are among the bests out there. Now on top of that they have managed to introduce Vivaldi into the world of Browsers and its use in Mercedes, Renault and VAG, that has not even been achieved by Google and with this also eliminated the possibility of acting against Vivaldi, without messing with these Companies. This is showing a really big middle finger.
Yeah? Manifest V3 wants to have a word with you and your completely independent de-googled Browser. Some might be able to put in the work to delay the rollout but at one point anything not supporting V3 will just break compability, completely unintentional obviously.
It's FOSS but the 'look but don't touch' kind of FOSS.
One big life-changing thing will be something like Manifest V3, limiting ad-blockers capabilities. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/chrome-users-beware-manifest-v3-deceitful-and-threatening https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/googles-manifest-v3-still-hurts-privacy-security-innovation
Rules for thee and not for me kind of stance when it comes to who is collecting all the sweet data from its users, it wont be possible to block every tracker and ad from Google in the future because every add-on will have a limit of how many domains they are trying to block.
I mean what could possibly go wrong if the biggest data collector and ad provider has a monopoly on web browser?
Why is it bad to use chromium base browsers? If the market is essentially only Chromium and Safari, Firefox compatibility will be even less important and broken sites will only lead to a bigger monopoly because users will switch.
And people still support and use Google search so the monster just continues growing.
I guess we get what we deserve as a species.
I've tried to move away from Google search so many times but honestly it's just too convenient..
Startpage, Google results without Google tracking.
They still get some data, but you can use something like DuckDuckGo as main and Startpage as fallback.
Kagi did it for me. I set it as default search engine when it was new, and I actually forgot about it. Thats how good it is.
It's the same results as Google, just ranked differently so you don't get all the junk. You will discover lots of new web sites that are quite good.
Try it!
I think duck duck go is better personally. There are still a ton of Google services id have trouble leaving though. Google photos, Maps, Docs ect. I don't think I could quit google altogether.
Isn't it Duck Duck Go that sent metadata to Microsoft, also if they denied it.
Interesting so I guess they use Microsoft ad services and thus send data to Microsoft. I just like their search results because they're less spammy than Google. Also I found Google sensors their search results a bit more. Let's say your trying to find a site for pirate streaming. You'll have better luck with DuckDuckGo.
Searching for pirate streaming/illegal websites on Google is in general not a good idea…
Yeah in particular NFL streams idk how to find them. Luckily my work has a guy who always seems to know a good site.
@pingu, I can't detect nothing apart of some anonymous data.
DDG is not my favorite search engine, but it can be considered private and reliable.
Sorry, I remembered it wrong… the problem was that DuckDuckGo stopped blocking Microsoft trackers. But it seems that the contract with Microsoft was terminated after the discovery.
@pingu, anyway it's good to have several search engines at hand, apart of DDG, Startpage, Qwant, Mojeek f.Exmp. are good options.
I started using Startpage it takes Google searches and gives it to the user anonymously. The results are quite good because it's essential Google results.
@pingu @BrokenToshy, Startpage is my secondary search engine, mainly for images, the other secondary most used is Mojeek, but my main and first search is Andisearch (AI) with unique features and one of the most private search engine out there
https://andisearch.com
Just tried it a bit, and it seems good, the summary on the left and the website on the right is a great UI (my preferences). I will test/try it for daily use and see if it can handle my often complicated problems…
@pingu, normally it solves it very well, in all the time that I use it it has given me good and reliable answers. On very few occasions it failed with any expression, but then it offers a direct search on the net.
Mostly having the centralized backbone of chromium makes people uncomfortable since it can do a lot from behind the scenes if it wanted to. But the raw base form is pretty much fine AFAIK, it's just very rare among browsers to do so.