Kelson Reviews Stuff - Page 14

Debian isn’t my first choice Linux distribution for either desktop or servers, but it’s my second choice for both.

Upsides: More reliable than Ubuntu, easier to install than Arch, a more stable base than Fedora, more standard in its libraries than Alpine. Debian is one of the classic distros, and is the basis for multiple modern variations. And it runs on a wide range of hardware architectures, with first-tier support for ARM (both 32bit and aarch64), RISC-V, and more in addition to the more common x86_64.

Downsides: Slower to update software than Fedora or Arch, bigger than Alpine. Though the former can be mitigated using Flatpak or Snap (which have their own issues).

I still prefer Alpine for servers and highly-constrained virtual machines because it’s so tiny, but if I’m going to be running something that requires glibc, or I need the wider array of software available from a more “mainstream” distro, I prefer the stability of Debian rather than Ubuntu or Fedora, and I’d rather not set up Arch again if I can avoid it.

Probably worth noting that IT at my current job also switched from Debian to Ubuntu and back to Debian for our servers.

For desktop use, I still prefer Fedora, since the faster release cycle means that the included software and environment are kept more up to date. Ubuntu used to be my second choice on desktop, but lately I’ve been tinkering with several distros as desktop VMs, and it’s not Ubuntu I keep going back to: it’s Debian. Ubuntu feels half-baked these days. Debian stable feels solid, even if I’m running slightly older versions of software (usually with security fixes backported, at least).

I’m not sure what distribution I’d recommend to a novice these days, but I’d definitely be more inclined to recommend Debian than Arch or Alpine.

The comedy about a robot coming to life and the humans trying to catch him or help him escape holds up better than I expected! The human leads are as engaging as the robot, the jokes are (mostly) still funny, and the story holds up under internal logic (if not real-world logic). The villains are cardboard (the trigger-happy army division and the selfish jerk ex-boyfriend), but that’s just fine for this type of comedy.

The only real problem is Ben, the one-dimensional comic relief Indian programmer played by a white actor in brownface. At least he’s shown to be both intelligent and sympathetic (and in the sequel he’s actually written as a person).

For Chrome, Google takes the Chromium project as a base and adds more connections to Google services. Ungoogled Chromium goes the other direction: it removes everything that connects to Google services (including the “Ad Topics” that would track you in the browser). This is great for privacy! But it also removes things like Safe Browsing and syncing. (I have gotten bookmark sync working with Floccus.)

You also have to jump through hoops to install extensions, since it doesn’t trust the Chrome Web Store! You have to either install and update extensions manually, or manually install another extension that will connect to the web store. The bookmarklet on that page is a convenient way to download an extension from its store page, and I’m copying it here for easy reference:

javascript:location.href='https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx?response=redirect&acceptformat=crx2,crx3&prodversion='+(navigator.appVersion.match(/Chrome\/(\S+)/)[1])+'&x=id%'+'3D'+(document.querySelector('a[href^="./detail"][href$="/report"]').pathname.match(/([^\/]+)\/report$/)[1])+'%'+'26installsource%'+'3Dondemand%'+'26uc';

A few quirks: It’s crashed a couple of times even in the short time I’ve been using it, and it’s run out of memory on lower-spec virtual machines. And (this is weirdly specific) it doesn’t show lines while adding a new way to OpenStreetMap using the online editor.

Otherwise everything in my Chromium review applies here too.

Availability

Packages are available for various Linux distributions, usually in the user-maintained repositories like AUR for Arch or COPR for Fedora, plus a Flatpak, Guix and NixOS. Some, including the Flatpak, are available for both x86_64 and aarch64, while others are Intel/AMD only and lack ARM support (though you could compile it yourself if you really want to). Homebrew provides a package for macOS, and Windows installers are on GitHub. The GitHub page also lists an Android port, but it doesn’t seem to be maintained – the latest release is three years old.

In addition to the extra steps for installing and updating extensions in the first place, the Flatpak has the usual issues connecting to KeePassXC.

Bottom Line

Ungoogled Chromium is a good option to have. But it’s in a weird middle zone. It leaks less data than Chromium or Chrome, but so does, say, Vivaldi. It’s lighter weight too, but not as lightweight as Falkon. For me, the gains aren’t quite enough to make up for the rough edges and missing features. YMMV, of course.

The basis for most web browsers out there today, driven primarily by Google for building Chrome.

As a stand-alone browser it’s not exactly Chrome minus Google (that would be Ungoogled Chromium), but it doesn’t have all the Google branding, tracking, attempts to funnel you into their services…or support for proprietary media.

Not Entirely Stable

It’s effectively the in-development version of Chrome, which means if you just download it from the project website, it’s not always stable. And it doesn’t auto-update. They really don’t make it easy and would rather you test things with a proper Chrome beta or “canary” build.

As Fedora puts it, Chromium is a “WebKit (Blink) powered web browser that Google doesn’t want you to use.”

And to be fair, you probably don’t want to use it as your primary browser…at least not on Windows or macOS.

Better on Linux

Major Linux distributions (Fedora and Debian, for instance) do include stable versions of Chromium in their software repositories. There’s a Flatpak (and probably a Snap) for other distros, on both AMD_64 and ARM (aarch64).

Though it’s still visibly slower than Vivaldi on my system.

Google Connections

I thought I remembered syncing Chromium with Chrome for a while a few years back, but that doesn’t seem to be possible anymore. I couldn’t get version 132 on Debian to sign in, and version 133 on Fedora doesn’t even offer the feature.

It does include features like safe browsing (which can check downloads or URLs against Google for malware) and the new advertising topics (tracking in the browser) (which was the final straw for me to ditch Chrome and switch to Vivaldi) so you’ll still want to fine-tune your settings as to what you are and aren’t willing to send.

Extensions

Chromium is hooked up to the regular Chrome Web Store and you can install just about anything. Floccus works just fine for syncing bookmarks, and Privacy Badger for blocking trackers. KeePassXC-Browser works for filling passwords – if you’re using native packages for both KeePass and Chromium. (It’s a pain to get native messaging running through a Flatpak or Snap, and I still haven’t managed to get it to work on my system.)

Bottom Line

Chromium is a great, versatile engine. As a browser itself, even the stable Linux packages still feel like a first draft with placeholders for things like syncing. Google fills in those placeholders for Chrome. Vivaldi, Opera, Brave, etc. fill them in for their own browsers. Vivaldi is my current favorite of these, followed by Falkon on low-spec hardware

A fun frontier/sailing adventure in a throwback sort of way, but nothing really special. Sort of a mashup of Moby Dick…IN SPAAAACE with everyone based out of a corrupt frontier town. The title refers to the planet’s slow rotation, only four day/night cycles in a year, which makes the surface uninhabitable during the long, boiling days and freezing nights.

Characters include the scrappy teen reporter, the town drunk with suspiciously good reflexes, the corrupt union boss colluding with the corrupt corporate representative, rugged sea captains, and the school principal who figures if he can handle a bunch of kids, he can handle an unruly mob.

It appears to be set in the same universe as Little Fuzzy, but it’s more interested in telling an adventure than asking big questions. Which is fine – I probably would have liked it a lot more at, say, 10 or 12.