Chromium browser will stop syncing with google accounts on March 15th

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

Summary

Google is killing off sync in Chromium, the FOSS browser that Google Chrome is based on. The feature will stop working on March 15th.

 

Quotes

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Among the APIs nixed are those supporting the browser’s account syncing services, translation, and spell checking.

• Google account sync
• Geolocation
• Click to Call
• Chrome spelling API
• Contacts API
• Chrome translate element
• Safe browsing

Quote

Chromium API Removal Affects Everyone

Although these APIs are being axed in the near future they are, at the time you read this, still work. And they will continue to work until mid-March. But it’s important to know once Google cuts off access to these API keys it affects everyone who uses Chromium.

But all version of Chromium will be affected from March 15, even on older builds where the API keys are still present.

 

 

My thoughts

This is a huge blow to FOSS enthousiasts. if you wanted a browser that's completely stripped down, with almost all unneccesary stuff stripped out of it, and that was open source, you had a choice of either Chromium or Firefox. i was a loyal Chromium user, because it's basically chrome with most of the tracking and other proprietary stuff stripped out. i am now forced to firefox, which works fine of course, but i prefer Chromium as a browser. such a shame that this happened.

 

Sources

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/01/chromium-sync-google-api-removed

[jaslion]

4 minutes ago, Ashley xD said:

Summary

Google is killing off sync in Chromium, the FOSS browser that Google Chrome is based on. The feature will stop working on March 15th.

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

This is a huge blow to FOSS enthousiasts. if you wanted a browser that's completely stripped down, with almost all unneccesary stuff stripped out of it, and that was open source, you had a choice of either Chromium or Firefox. i was a loyal Chromium user, because it's basically chrome with most of the tracking and other proprietary stuff stripped out. i am now forced to firefox, which works fine of course, but i prefer Chromium as a browser. such a shame that this happened.

 

Sources

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/01/chromium-sync-google-api-removed

Well at least firefox gets a little more users now maybe. The last non chromium browser. Like we really need firefox to survive.

[Dominik W]

Why would they do that? Isn't Chromium like part of Google? 

[mahyar]

whaaaaaat

as a linux user thats very disappointing im im not leaving manjaro (for ubuntu or fedora) because of chrome guess firefox it is 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

2 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Well at least firefox gets a little more users now maybe. The last non chromium browser. Like we really need firefox to survive.

it's by no means the last non-chromium browser. there are also WebKit based browsers, like Apple's Safari for example.

 

2 minutes ago, Dominik W said:

Why would they do that? Isn't Chromium like part of Google? 

it is an open source project. google just maintains the project.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

1 minute ago, mahyar said:

whaaaaaat

as a linux user thats very disappointing im im not leaving manjaro (for ubuntu or fedora) because of chrome guess firefox it is 

if you must have a chromium based browser with google account sync you can just install google chrome, but it's not the same.

[mahyar]

Just now, Ashley xD said:

if you must have a chromium based browser with google account sync you can just install google chrome, but it's not the same.

chrome does not have a version for arch afaik

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

2 minutes ago, mahyar said:

chrome does not have a version for arch afaik

it does, you can either install it from Snap or the AUR.

[jaslion]

3 minutes ago, Ashley xD said:

it's by no means the last non-chromium browser. there are also WebKit based browsers, like Apple's Safari for example.

 

it is an open source project. google just maintains the project.

*Forgot the words open source. I keep forgetting about safari. Other than firefox I don't know of any other big open source webbrowser.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

Just now, jaslion said:

*Forgot the words open source. I keep forgetting about safari. Other than firefox I don't know of any other big open source webbrowser.

chromium used to be, but it'll be useless now if you need sync.

[jaslion]

Just now, Ashley xD said:

chromium used to be, but it'll be useless now if you need sync.

Should have included that too but thought it would be obvious that chromium was the other one since we were talking about it :p. Sucks tho but normal for google wanting to make the whole web theirs. I do hope something is done about this as a browser monopoly would just be terrible.

[TetraSky]

Good, less Google in our alternative browsers.

That said, my browser of choice (vivaldi), already had their own user accounts for people who want that online junk. But they don't push it, unlike Google which will sign you into the browser if you make the mistake of using any of Google's services on Chrome.

[duncannah]

Wait, doesn't make it "better" since there's less Google stuff now? I don't get what's so bad about it

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

20 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Good, less Google in our alternative browsers.

chromium-based browsers already have all that stripped off. Microsoft actually has a great page disclosing all the things they removed form chromium in the making of the chromium-based Edge browser:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/8/18300772/microsoft-google-services-removed-changed-chromium-edge-browser

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

Just now, duncannah said:

Wait, doesn't make it "better" since there's less Google stuff now? I don't get what's so bad about it

i rely on sync. therefore one of the biggest FOSS browsers is unusable to me now. and i'm not the only one.

[LAwLz]

And nothing of value was lost.

 

I mean, why use Chromium anyway? I get if you want to use it because you don't trust Google and want to avoid them spying on you, but in that case willingly syncing your browser data to your Google account defeats the purpose.

[Sauron]

I use firefox but even if I still used chromium I wouldn't really care, I don't sync my browsers.

 

Also I would be surprised if someone didn't just fork it and add their own sync. It may even be doable through an extension, I'm not sure though.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I mean, why use Chromium anyway? I get if you want to use it because you don't trust Google and want to avoid them spying on you

that's not why i wanna use it. i want to use it because chromium-based browsers have the best support on the web, and vanilla chromium is just a really nice stripped down browser.

[LAwLz]

55 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I use firefox but even if I still used chromium I wouldn't really care, I don't sync my browsers.

 

Also I would be surprised if someone didn't just fork it and add their own sync. It may even be doable through an extension, I'm not sure though.

Sadly it won't be doable. At least not in any practical way that won't break easily.

[StDragon]

Good. There's a reason I'm using the new MS Edge and not Google Chrome even though they're both based on Chromium.

[Meowcat285]

What happens if you compile it yourself and put your own API Keys in there? All the APIs can be used through the Google API Console or Google Cloud Platform.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

8 minutes ago, StDragon said:

Good. There's a reason I'm using the new MS Edge and not Google Chrome even though they're both based on Chromium.

how is this good? it sucks for people using chromium.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

2 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Just saying, the people who lost anything with this are unsupported platforms which relied on community builds.
For everybody else, you can use Dissenter, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, (Chr)Edge, etc. Firefox is currently being managed by lunatics, so not an option.

the great thing about chromium was that it was clean. opera, vivaldi, brave and even edge all have stuff bolted on to the browser to make it different than the rest. i very much enjoyed the clean experience chromium gives you.

[StDragon]

1 hour ago, Ashley xD said:

how is this good? it sucks for people using chromium.

IDK, but the way I see it, if you're going to be integrating your Google account with Chromium, how is that any different than using Chrome to begin with?

Google is an analytics company, so I'm ok with then defining the parameter of what is and isn't in their ecosystem. 

[RejZoR]

3 hours ago, Ashley xD said:

that's not why i wanna use it. i want to use it because chromium-based browsers have the best support on the web, and vanilla chromium is just a really nice stripped down browser.

People keep saying this, yet I have to find a webpage that doesn't work in Firefox. And I doubt web admins have to rewrite whole pages just to run on Firefox. It's frankly just not as problematic as everyone seem to say it is.