Chromium (and Chromium-based browsers) losing sync support on March 15

dalto · January 27, 2021, 12:56pm

Moderation Note: Please avoid turning this topic into a privacy debate.

Back on topic, here is another recent post from the mailing list:

Dropping Google API key support from Arch packages will
also affect libreoffice packages. Removing the keys from
Libreoffice packages will make it loose access to Google drive.

https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2021-January/030314.html

ringo · January 27, 2021, 9:57pm

Hmm interesting then i am curius what gvfs-google do and gdata stuf no wonder the sync for thunerbird also not updated anymore… mmmm

Beardedgeek72 · January 27, 2021, 10:00pm

Speaking of, what happens to Gnome Online Accounts?

zoli62 · January 28, 2021, 9:20am

Then the sync works properly for one and less for the other. (e.g. Opera browser)

dalto · January 28, 2021, 1:14pm

If a browser uses google’s sync infrastructure, it will stop working.

If a browser has it’s own Sync infrastructure, it is not a problem. For example, vivaldi, edge and brave all have their own infrastructures.

dalto · January 28, 2021, 1:51pm

I don’t know the answer to that question.

As I understand it, there are two separate issues.

Google is restricting access to their APIs keys and certain services - The services that are being restricted are only services which require google sign-in. In the case of Chromium, this is mostly limited to Sync support.
In the course of conversation with the packagers about this issue, Google also shared that they are going to be adding smaller quotas to personal API keys. This means that if packagers replace Google’s API keys with personal API keys, a broader array of services will not function once the quota is met. These include Google’s safe browsing feature.

To murky the waters further, the most recent clarification from Google was not that packagers needed to disable the API keys but that disabling Google sign-in or removing Google’s oath client id and secret would be sufficient. I think this would mean there would be no sync but that safe browsing would still function.

At this point I have a few takeaways from this

Sync support in Chromium is going away in mid-March
Even if an alternative Sync solution is implemented in Chromium, there wouldn’t be inter-operability with Chrome sync anymore so people on platforms without a Chrome build are locked out of Google sync
Everything else is still being figured out and it is probably better to take a wait and see approach before hitting the panic button

nigelwarning · January 29, 2021, 12:37am

For the people who used Chromium for Vaapi.
Google Chrome 88 also supports Vaapi now.

Firefox already did

anon9173994 · February 2, 2021, 3:21am

Just saw this clip. For me, everything is for the better. Now maybe you can start using Chromium?

pebcak · February 2, 2021, 6:02am

Does anyone use this extension to enable installing extensions from Web Store in Ungoogled-Chromium:

and if not how is one supposed to install extensions?

anon9173994 · February 2, 2021, 6:19am

I downloaded the few extensions I use and do everything myself. It’s just uBlock Origin so go fast. Turn on Developer mode and enable action of extension MIME type requests. Done!

Capture

Edit:

While you’re in, fiddling with flags. Put these on too:

Capture

Then it will be a little harder to get browser fingerprinting on it.

A little extra tip for those of you who don’t know about it!

Beardedgeek72 · February 2, 2021, 10:07am

Heh, I have already replaced Chromium with Chrome in Linux because of this.

pebcak · February 2, 2021, 10:33am

Thanks for the reply!

I am not at my Linux box right now to try this but does it mean that I have to download the extensions manually from the Web Store? If so I don’t know how to do that.

anon9173994 · February 2, 2021, 10:36am

You need a .crx file on the extensions you want to download.

Then just drag them to extensions in Ungoogled-Chromium.

Capture

pebcak · February 2, 2021, 10:47am

Thanks! I’ll look into into it when I get home this evening.

anon9173994 · February 2, 2021, 11:20am

Here you have a site to help you download them:

Just post the link from the Google web store and the page downloads it to you.

An example link for uBlock Origin:

dalto · February 2, 2021, 1:56pm

It is a huge PITA to install extensions in ungoogled chromium.

You basically have to download and install them manually as @anon9173994 described.

If you always use the same extensions than it is a one-time setup effort but if you like to switch extensions in and out it becomes tiresome.

keybreak · February 2, 2021, 2:39pm

pebcak · February 2, 2021, 10:26pm

@anon9173994 , thanks for your replies!
I have followed your instructions but I don’t seem to be in luck installing the extensions.I tired with some, dowlowding the .crx file from the site you linked to but I get:

Don’t really know what is wrong. The procedure described by you is quite straightforward.

I have a set of 5-6 extensions that I need to install in the browser. However at this point I seem rather stuck with installing a single one.

anon9173994 · February 3, 2021, 3:40am

You have done this?

Capture

So I do anyway.

Edit:

Here is a link to the FAQ:

https://ungoogled-software.github.io/ungoogled-chromium-wiki/faq#installing-the-crx-file

pebcak · February 4, 2021, 7:56am

Thanks for the link! I haven’t been looking into this any further but I will. And yes I did enable that flag.

Thanks for your help!