Chromium Browser Recommendations Solicited

[van p]

One of the browsers I'm trying out is ungoogled-chromium. I'm using the developer NeverDecaf's tool to get the Chromium Web Store extension on my machine/in the browser. I've done all the steps. It's there and enabled. However, every item I click on in the store says the item is currently available. The other Chromium browsers I'm using/trying out work. Anybody know what's wrong? Thanks.

[frostknight]

One of the browsers I'm trying out is ungoogled-chromium. I'm using the developer NeverDecaf's tool to get the Chromium Web Store extension on my machine/in the browser. I've done all the steps. It's there and enabled. However, every item I click on in the store says the item is currently available. The other Chromium browsers I'm using/trying out work. Anybody know what's wrong? Thanks.

No idea, haven't tried chromium browsers besides maybe regular, LONG AGO... and possibly edge on someone else's comp.

On firefox you can sometimes download the extensions and install them manually via about:addons

I wonder if such a thing exists in chromium based web browsers

[Giraffe]

Might be too late, but I encountered SlimBrowser. Does seem to be fast:
https://www.slimbrowser.net/

[frostknight]

Might be too late, but I encountered SlimBrowser. Does seem to be fast:
https://www.slimbrowser.net/

Hmm... regular Chromium probably safer. If you have choose between a more proprietary fork of chromium and regular chromium, I usually recommend the the latter.

A good way to put is, Microsoft does not have the edge.

Pun completely intended.

[suzyne]

Hmm... regular Chromium probably safer

100% agree.

While the slimbrowser site has a certain peculiar charm, that sort of retro design, complete with a list of awards from download sites, doesn't cultivate the confidence that I need to trust a web browser.

Is that being unfair? Maybe, but sites in 2024 with that sort of look (that aren't trying to be cute or ironic) just make me think of malware and viruses.

[RealityRipple]

i remember TechTV... i saw my first 1 TB drive on "The Screen Savers"

[frostknight]

100% agree.

While the slimbrowser site has a certain peculiar charm, that sort of retro design, complete with a list of awards from download sites, doesn't cultivate the confidence that I need to trust a web browser.

Actually, my reason was proprietary web browsers are usually less secure and do shadier stuff compared to open source ones.

Not saying Chromium is the best example of a good open source web browser, in fact quite the opposite. But Slim being based on that design probably took it down deeper into the same hole it was already in.

Firefox is semi-decent by comparison but still sucks compared to mullvad and other forks that do things in a more secure way.

[van p]

My understanding is that SlimBrowser is Mozilla/Firefox. Again, I need a Chromium browser for when a site won't work right any other way. Thanks.

I asked a question about ungoogled-chromium a few days ago (at the top of page 4 I believe). I'll listen to anything anybody has to say, but that's my focus at this point. If somebody could address that question I'd appreciate it.

[suzyne]

I asked a question about ungoogled-chromium a few days ago...

At the risk of sounding unhelpful, where does the ungoogled-chromium community go for help? Is there any forum for its users?

I ask because I imagine there must surely be a space where the proportion of ungoogled-chromium users has a much higher density than the Pale Moon forums.

[van p]

suzyne, there doesn't appear to be anything "friendly." There are some possibilities in GitHub and Reddit which I'll look into as soon as I can. But I'm not a techie, and most of GitHub is beyond me. Reddit might have more to offer, but if a UC user here can solve the riddle, great.

[suzyne]

most of GitHub is beyond me

That's fair. I saw your post before and searched for NeverDecaf because it's always interesting to learn something new, which took me to a github page.

I took one look at the steps, and realised that if I installed ungoogled-chromium for "fun", and tried the NeverDecaf steps, and they worked, I likely wouldn't be able to explain why they did. And conversely, if they didn't work, then I would be in the same position as you and not knowing what to do.

ungoogled-chromium does look like a techie browser! I mentioned it earlier, but SRWare Iron might be the closest thing that tries to be less tied to google,  is easy to install, but still allows extensions and is updated reasonably frequently. (But not often enough to satisfy concerns about "zero-day" vulnerabilities.)

[van p]

suzyne, 'preciate your reply.

I considered SRWare Iron but saw a review somewhere saying that every download and/or ending every browsing session resets settings/preferences, something like that; I put Iron on the back burner at that point.

Concerning zero-day, I'm using a Chromium browser that was last updated a year-and-a-half ago. Nothing bad has happened in all that time, so I'm not going to obsess over that issue.

[suzyne]

The issue for me with Iron was problems streaming stuff like Spotify and Netflix, so that's the one big reason why I stick with Edge.

every download and/or ending every browsing session resets settings/preferences

But when I was trialing Iron, there were never problems like that, and it is nice that it has an active forum that includes the developer.

[van p]

I don't do Netflix and I have the Spotify application on my machine (no browser needed)--so no problems there. (Actually Spotify, I guess a few months ago, changed its logon process to use the default browser, then the browser can be closed.)

Concerning Iron changing stuff, I looked again. I don't think I found what I originally saw, but I found the following from Slant:

"CON Not keeping user settings, very unstabile, posible backdoor behaviour
After any browsing session after you exit the app and use a cleaner tool [CCleaner or other] when you start the browser next time, all setting inclusive search engine and security-privacy related is reverted to default...
I tested for 2 weeks and don't find any other cause than that is from app internal, is programmed deep in core scripts."

Didn't see a date so don't know how recent/relevant this is. Don't know anything about Slant, but I'm leery of the place. The poor spelling above is very unprofessional, and the page jumps around constantly with ads from here to Honduras faster than I can blink my eyes.

I'm probably gonna go with Thorium, hopefully with a final decision over the weekend.

[van p]

I've chosen Thorium; thanks to Sajadi for the recommendation, and to everybody else for theirs.

I looked at/tried several. None were perfect; I chose what seemed to be the least objectionable. I guess my first choice would have been ungoogled-chromium (it's more up-to-date than Thorium), but I can't get it to download from Google's web store (I don't need much). Maybe something will change in the future.

Thanks again.

[frostknight]

My understanding is that SlimBrowser is Mozilla/Firefox.

That's actually true, I thought you were wrong and it was chromium but I just looked and yeah... I am thinking of slimjet not slimbrowser.

Very strange.

There are other firefox forks I may not have mentioned. One is called Mercury.

Supposedly its a really fast one, I think they disabled all the health reporting crap to speed it up.

In any case,

Whatever works for you.

[jarsealer]

A bit late here, but there's also Cromite https://github.com/uazo/cromite for PC and mobile.

It's like vanilla chromium with some extra privacy tweaks and 0 telemetry. You can turn off ad blocking and anything else you want.

[van p]

Took a quick look. Will look more in depth when I have time. www.cromite.org apparently is dead, if that means anything.

[frostknight]

Took a quick look. Will look more in depth when I have time. www.cromite.org apparently is dead, if that means anything.

Their git page is not dead though. Maybe their website? But their git has been worked on as of 4 days ago.