
Chrome is basically crippling Chromium's features - r3bl
https://blog.r3bl.me/en/chrome-vs-chromium/
======
infodroid
> Chrome is basically crippling Chromium's features

The article doesn't even rule out the obvious possibility that the problems
are just due to a bug in Chromium, and not some malicious behaviour on the
part of Chrome. After all, both Chrome and Chromium share a common code base
and it's highly plausible that there might be some issues with running them
side by side.

Also, part of the problem might be due to the fact the author didn't purge
Chrome with `dpkg -P` but only removed the package with `dpkg -r`, leaving
Chrome conffiles intact, which then broke Chromium.

So until there is at least some indication that the problem isn't just due to
one or more bugs in Chromium, the author's claims are seriously exaggerated
and the article is effectively clickbait.

The best way to deal with such problems is to engage with Ubuntu, Chrome, or
Chromium support systems and community forums.

~~~
nl
Exactly.

It's pretty clear that this is an attempt to keep the profiles compatible
between the two, but it's probably an untested combination of rarely used
features.

Chromium + Linux + Using (specific?) Chrome Apps + Installing version of
Chrome after Chromium = not many people have done this.

It seems to me "just a bug", and probably easily worked around (as I posted
below) by using multiple profiles.

Annoying though I guess.

------
CommanderData
Chromium's Web Speech API 'ServiceURI' attribute was removed recently allowing
you to specify your own speech recognition service instead of the default
Google's Speech service.

Last Wednesday, I tried searching for a work-around, it would seem I'd have to
build something with WebRTC to achieve similar responsiveness. The attribute
was available until 49.

I don't know the reason behind its removal. There isn't anything to suggest
Google is forcing you into their speech service (which is expensive) but it
would be nice to ASR on your own server and have the attribute back as per the
specification or not be forced into using Cloud Speech or reinvent the wheel.

Spec: [https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/speech-api/raw-
file/tip/speechapi.htm...](https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/speech-api/raw-
file/tip/speechapi.html#dfn-serviceuri)

Others seem to have noticed:
[https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!searchin/ch...](https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!searchin/chromium-
dev/web$20speech$20api/chromium-dev/mUe4NM5xEzk/uRHvuZdSBQAJ)

~~~
gsnedders
The commit mesasaging dropping it: "Reverting serviceURI since it is not
supported anymore."

That at least implies it was already unsupported, and the code diff doesn't
seem to change anything notable. Looking through history I can't find any
evidence of serviceURI ever being hooked up to anything? Are you sure setting
serviceURI ever actually _did_ anything?

------
KyeRussell
Well that headline definitely isn't sensationalist.

------
nl
Can't you fix this using multi-profiles?
[https://www.chromium.org/developers/creating-and-using-
profi...](https://www.chromium.org/developers/creating-and-using-profiles)

------
r3bl
Since this is on the homepage and my VPS is rather small, here's a mirror:
[https://medium.com/@r3bl/chrome-is-basically-crippling-
chrom...](https://medium.com/@r3bl/chrome-is-basically-crippling-chromiums-
features-c08c6e684531)

~~~
metalmanac
Just curious, what are the specs of your VPS?

~~~
r3bl
2.4 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 20 GB storage, 1 TB bandwidth.

Surprisingly, it's handling the traffic just fine.

~~~
discreditable
Seems like you're running Jekyll. If that's the case I'm not surprised. Static
sites handle load amazingly well.

------
Insanity
Out of curiosity, why did you switch to Chrome? I have been using Chromium on
all my machines, a Ubuntu one being my main machine and experienced no issues
with it whatsoever.

I do experience some issues with the Signal chrome app, it when I log in on my
deskop it replays message notifications which I have already seen on my phone.
But I am not sure if this is a chromium issue, and even if it is, it's a very
minor one.

~~~
rfz
That's just the Chrome Signal app playing catchup - not Chromium's fault. It's
not the best app in the world. Really can't wait for the next iteration that
isn't in Chrome form.

~~~
Insanity
Oh thank you rfz, I did not know that. Signal is the only chromium app that I
am using. Are they making a stand alone app?

~~~
rfz
Evidently all Chrome apps are being phased out for Windows/Linux/Mac, so I can
only assume they will. Not that Signal is a very feature-filled app or concept
(it doesn't need to be), but it could definitely stand to be a bit more
polished.

[http://www.omgchrome.com/not-joke-google-killing-chrome-
apps...](http://www.omgchrome.com/not-joke-google-killing-chrome-apps/)

~~~
lima
I hate this.

Chrome Apps are nicely sandboxed within Chrome's sandbox.

Now everyone is porting their stuff Electron, which has no sandbox.

Deprecating Chrome Apps is hurting users by making their systems less secure.

~~~
angry_octet
I am contemplating extracting the bits of chromium required to just make it an
app container, so I can continue to run Chrome apps on the desktop. Since
Chrome apps will still exist for Chromebooks it should keep working.

~~~
lima
I fear that app developers would abandon their Chrome apps in favor of
Electron.

~~~
rfz
Seems to me that devs would only be smart (read: not in our favor or best
interest) to go where the people are; what's the ChromeOS userbase compared to
that of other OSes?

~~~
angry_octet
I don't care about ChromeOS, it's cross-platform, offline capable, secure and
sandboxed applications I want. How much easier to distribute just the Chrome
App engine to hundreds of varying Windows boxes, than the individual apps?

~~~
rfz
I was agreeing with you.

------
BlackLotus89
The author seems rather incompetent and obviously doesn't know what he is
talking about.

I could rip apart pretty much every second paragraph, but since being helpful
is more... You know helpful here one tip:

For signal change it back to chromium and pair it again. The desktop client
doesn't delete the history on an unpair and a re-pair will show your old
history

------
amelius
Video sites quite often do not work on chromium, but do work on chrome. Both
on Linux.

~~~
icebraining
Yes, that's because Chrome includes proprietary codecs, while Chromium
doesn't. I believe there are some ffmpeg bindings available on most distros to
solve that.

~~~
amelius
Okay, thanks.

I still think that Chromium needs better error reporting; it's difficult to
figure out what is wrong when a video is not displaying (often, I think it is
just not loading); and which codec is missing.

~~~
majewsky
AFAIK that's sort of the website's fault. The HTML5 video support allows the
website to query the browser's codec capabilities in order to determine which
video file to show to the user (for those sites where videos are available in
multiple codecs), so if the website's JS does not find any matching codec,
they should show an appropriate error message.

Now of course, to most users of the average video site, an error message
involving the words "supported codecs" would just be gibberish, so I can see
why many video sites just show a generic "Something went wrong" error (or
nothing at all, since it's plainly obvious that something went wrong when the
video's not playing).

------
devoply
Google no longer cares about Linux. They are even abandoning the kernel for
Android in favor of a homegrown kernel. To expect good support for Linux going
forward is just like expecting good support from any other vendor that does
not care about the small community of Linux users.

~~~
lima
That's FUD.

Fuchsia is a research project and it was never stated that it was intended to
replace Linux.

All of their servers run Linux. Chrome OS runs on Linux. Most of their
workstations are Linux.

"Google no longer cares about Linux" makes no sense.

~~~
gsnedders
Also the lack of coordination across different parts of Google is blatantly
obvious in plenty of ways: you have parts pushing hard against any type of
browser-specific code while others make things that are Chrome-only; you have
different parts making competing messaging apps; etc. To pretend Google is
acting in a coordinated way against Linux seems highly dubious given the lack
of any coordination in general.

