Chromium Browser Recommendations Solicited

[van p]

fatboy, you say Beta, the website sez Alpha. Also, 2 whole developers; I guess that's better than Thorium.

[frostknight]

fatboy, you say Beta, the website sez Alpha. Also, 2 whole developers; I guess that's better than Thorium.

Ungoogled chromium is the only chromium web browser I would choose if I had to and was willing.

I do currently have chromium on my debian based installs, but I hate using it.

Funny thing, ebay gave librewolf a hard time uploading images and I had to use chromium for that.

Just goes to show how stupid the worlds web developers are catering to evil chromium empire like this

[Night Wing]

There is a new kid on the block, it is in Beta, and have been playing with it for a few days. I really like it, it is exactly what I want in a chromium browser, minimal. DRM does not work yet.

Helium Browser
https://helium.computer/

Although I am not a fan of Chromium type browsers (Brave, Vivaldi), the Helium browser has caught my eye. I am thinking of taking it for a test drive. On the link you provided, it shows the "beta" version for the 64 bit linux AppImage. I like AppImages, but not for browsers.

I am not a fan of "beta" software either. But after clicking on the link and reading up on Helium, further down the page there is a GitHub link. So I clicked on that link and it took me to a download page.

https://github.com/imputnet/helium-linu ... ag/0.6.7.1

And there was a linux tarball which I prefer for linux browsers which is below. And, unlike the beta AppImage for linux, I do not think this tarball is "beta" software.

Code: Select all

 helium-0.6.7.1-x86_64_linux.tar.xz 

[van p]

Ungoogled chromium is the only chromium web browser I would choose if I had to and was willing.

I tested/previewed several Chromiums 2-3 months ago, including U-c. They all aggravated me in some manner. Don't remember now what U-c's problem was. I was going to give Chromite a try but then realized Thorium wasn't dead after all, so I put Chromite on hold. If I have to wait too much longer for Thorium to be updated, I'll probably look into both Chromite and Helium. 'preciate your input though. Guess I should ask: What makes U-c special in your mind?

On a related matter, in some Topic (maybe this one; I don't wanna take the time to look) somebody questioned why not give Firefox a try if Pale Moon won't handle some sites. The objective is to use a browser I know will work if Pale Moon won't. That means the industry standard--Chromium. For the record, I now have a list of 16 sites I have to use Chromium on because Pale Moon has trouble on the sites, if not as a practical matter doesn't work at all or just takes forever to load or transition. I'm hangin' in here with Pale Moon as long as possible.

[andyprough]

I tested/previewed several Chromiums 2-3 months ago, including U-c. They all aggravated me in some manner. Don't remember now what U-c's problem was. I was going to give Chromite a try but then realized Thorium wasn't dead after all, so I put Chromite on hold. If I have to wait too much longer for Thorium to be updated, I'll probably look into both Chromite and Helium. 'preciate your input though. Guess I should ask: What makes U-c special in your mind?

On a related matter, in some Topic (maybe this one; I don't wanna take the time to look) somebody questioned why not give Firefox a try if Pale Moon won't handle some sites. The objective is to use a browser I know will work if Pale Moon won't. That means the industry standard--Chromium. For the record, I now have a list of 16 sites I have to use Chromium on because Pale Moon has trouble on the sites, if not as a practical matter doesn't work at all or just takes forever to load or transition. I'm hangin' in here with Pale Moon as long as possible.

You have a very narrowly defined set of criteria that have somehow landed you on using a browser by one developer with no track record of consistent updates. Chromium/Chrome have the largest set of zero-day exploits of any software project over the past 5 years by far - if you use a chromium-based browser you are facing serious security threats on a consistent basis. If I were doing this same search, I'd be looking at projects with a large number of developers that are able to keep up-to-date with the latest chromium releases, and trying to somehow fit my needs into their offerings.

[Night Wing]

Thought I would do an update. The Helium browser is not for me. Reason being, Chrome is going to do away with Manifest 2 and when it does, the "original" uBlock Origin will basically be crippled in YouTube.

When using YouTube, when Google kills off Manifest 2 for Manifest 3, uBlock Origin will become "uBlock Origin Lite. And the Lite version is bascially useless in YouTube.

The second reason is the extensions for Helium come exclusively out of the Google Store. That is another "no-no" for me. Since I do not have any problems with Waterfox, I will keep using linux Waterfox as my backup browser to linux Pale Moon.

If I ever need a fourth browser when using MX Linux and Debian, linux Floorp would be that browser. So in essence, the break down is below (hypothetically speaking).

1) Pale Moon
2) Waterfox
3) Floorp
4) Firefox

[Gemmaugr]

My own setup is;

Pale Moon 99% of the time
Basilisk 1%

In the event I'll absolutely need a google chromium backup browser, I'll probably go with Brave browser.

[jarsealer]

It seems the more people use Chromium and browsers based off of it, the worse it gets for the web, because everything will only work for that browser. Why design a website for other browser engines when everyone uses the same one?

But if you just care about a browser that works on everything (Chromium) and is "private (doesn't make any unnecessary network requests or opt-out telemetry)" I'd go for U-C or Cromite since they are closer to vanilla Chromium, which I assume means faster updates. But I could be wrong there, also Chromium's UI looks quite bland and boring.

[van p]

jarsealer, as I said in the past somewhere on this forum, "If I gotta get to a site, I gotta get to a site." I recently said I had 16 sites where I need to use Chromium; it's now 17. I could get to the site, but I couldn't log in using Pale Moon; I can using Chromium. Have you looked at Helium, which was recently mentioned here?

[Moonchild]

Why design a website for other browser engines when everyone uses the same one?

It's actually the wrong question to ask. The whole point is thar webmasters should not design for any particular browser or engine! They should design for established (not draft) standards, and pick from there preferably those specs that are mature and sane from a design perspective.
If you start off by designing a website for a particular engine, i.e. a specific implementation, then you're doing things to boost the monoculture from the start. Chromium's implementation has a ton of warts and the Chromium team is happy to let those fester and eventually force everyone else to have the same warts.

[jarsealer]

Have you looked at Helium, which was recently mentioned here?

Yes, but they don't have builds for arm64 so I can't try it on my system. Maybe they'll make them once it's out of beta.

Seems like a viable alternative if going for the Chromium route.

[Night Wing]

Have you looked at Helium, which was recently mentioned here?

Yes, but they don't have builds for arm64 so I can't try it on my system. Maybe they'll make them once it's out of beta.

Seems like a viable alternative if going for the Chromium route.

If you are using linux.

Maybe you missed it on the previous link in this topic thread. But on the link below, there is an arm64 build for Helium for linux. One is listed as a tarball and second one is listed as the arm64 AppImage.

https://github.com/imputnet/helium-linu ... ag/0.6.7.1

Look for the two listed as

Code: Select all

 helium-0.6.7.1-arm64.AppImage 

and

Code: Select all

helium-0.6.7.1-arm64_linux.tar.xz 

On the link I just posted in this thread, I do not see a Windows build.

[Gemmaugr]

Closed Source google Chromium Rebuilds:

Chrome (googles own data-gathering browser, proprietary, USA)
Edge (Microsofts data-gathering rebuild, proprietary, USA)
Amazon Silk (Amazon's data-gathering rebuild, proprietary, USA)
DuckDuckGo (proprietary, USA)
SRWare Iron (proprietary, Germany)
Ecosia (proprietary, Germany)
Vivaldi (proprietary, Former Opera, now Othello, developers data-gathering rebuild, Norway)
Opera (proprietary, Tencent's CCP-controlled data-gathering rebuild, China)
Epic Browser (proprietary, India)
Naver Whale (proprietary, South Korean)
Yandex (proprietary, Russia)

Abandoned (Updated 6 months or more ago) Closed Source Chromium Rebuilds:

Arc
Sleipner (proprietary, Japan)

Abandoned (Updated 6 months or more ago) Open Source Chromium Rebuilds:

Dissenter (USA)

Couldn't find enough data:

Samsung Internet (South Korean)
Avast Secure Browser (proprietary, Czech Republic)

Open Source google Chromium Rebuilds:

Brave (USA)
Falkon (QTWebEngine wrapper for chromium, Czech Republic)
Supermium (Canada)
Ungoogled Chromium
Helium (Russia)

Others found here: https://github.com/nerdyslacker/desktop-web-browsers (QTWebEngine, Electron, Blink, are google chromium/webviewbased. Web Kit is Safari. Trident is Microsoft Internet Explorer. Gecko is Mozilla Firefox. V8 is google javascript engine. Spidermonkey is Mozilla.)

[van p]

Gemmaugr, thanks for all that info; I couldn't do that if my life depended on it. However, looking at Helium's Privacy policy and Terms of use, they say they're located in Wyoming, a tad removed from Russia.

Night Wing, at https://github.com/imputnet/helium-windows/releases/tag/0.6.9.1, it shows an x64 Windows zip entry.

Also, somewhere it says its download process will recognize the requesting system and download the right product. And apparently the Windows version is in Alpha and everything else is Beta.

[andyprough]

looking at Helium's Privacy policy and Terms of use, they say they're located in Wyoming, a tad removed from Russia.

It's the work of two developers, wukko and dumbmoron. wukko seems definitely very Asian if you look at wukko's social media, and quite likely in Asia somewhere, I've read where some have said maybe Malaysia. The Wyoming connection is because that's where they established their LLC - doesn't mean they live there or have an office building there or anything. I don't know about dumbmoron's coding skills, but wukko is the developer behind https://cobalt.tools/, which is getting praised recently by some tech bloggers as a way to download videos from various sites. This will be one to keep an eye on, as they seem to be keeping up-to-date with the latest chromium releases.

Tom Murosky from the SwitchedToLinux channel expresses a lot of doubts about wukko and dumbmoron and Helium, but Tom tends to be a bit negative about things like this: https://odysee.com/@switchedtolinux:0/a ... ing-else:a
On the other hand, Tom is a professional web developer and has legitimately exposed a lot of "privacy" scams on his channel over the years, so his criticisms should be given due consideration.

[van p]

andyprough, thanks for the info. I've seen this odysee man a time or two before. I'll watch the video when I get a chance.

[andyprough]

andyprough, thanks for the info. I've seen this odysee man a time or two before. I'll watch the video when I get a chance.

odysee is just a video upload site, like youtube. In fact, you can watch Tom's videos on youtube also, I just personally watch stuff on odysee instead.