So, this isn’t specifically about Lubuntu, but I recently upgraded from 18.04LTS to 20.04LTS and…erm…I’ve been forced to use a snap version of Chromium
I hate it. Hate it. Hate. Hate. Hate. It.
Had nothing but problems with snap. Huge resource hog. Constantly runs in the background in addition to the application. Takes up more disk space than it has to. Stupidly sandboxed so I can’t access things like encrypted drives from within Chromium. Can’t set it as the default browser. Have to wait about 5 seconds every time I click on a downloaded file while it thinks about displaying a permissions dialog.
Can’t get rid of it either. Chromium-browser is apparently no longer available in the repositories as Ubuntu seem to want to force everybody to use the awful snap version.
Tried installing it manually, but most of the PPAs are outdated since the move to snap. Tried building it myself but I can’t get the API to work properly (Whilst I don’t want Chome and all it’s telemetry, I would like features such as Sync to work). In addition, all the resources seem to be for the dev or beta versions. I’d be happy just with the stable version but can’t find it anywhere.
Is there ANYWHERE that is actually still producing a usable version of this browser?
Nope, reading me all wrong, though I really have no fond opinion of anything Google does. I don’t find them to be the open source advocates they claim to be and that’s just the surface of the problem. Anyways, I digress…
So, in Lubuntu there are no Snaps installed. In every other flavour of Ubuntu, there is at least the core Snap installed, so snapd is running. Once you have that installed, you’re screwed, because you can’t uninstall it. Point being: if you can avoid Snaps, all the better (thus the suggestion of not using Chromium).
And you’re right, Chromium is only available as a Snap through Ubuntu. I’ve seen some folks try to make AppImages and Flatpaks out of it but nothing really well supported. You’ll have similar experiences with any PPAs anyone is running. You could try hacking the Debian packaging, perhaps.
So, let’s talk freedom: you do have the freedom to do whatever you want with free and open source software. Of course, that comes with the consequences of having to maintain and support any packaged version you make. That’s part of the reason why they created the Snap in the first place. I’m not saying I agree with it, but that’s why.
As a flavour of Ubuntu, we’re kind of at their mercy as far as what they do with the archive. We can argue and complain (many did, though as we have Firefox as our browser, we didn’t worry about it too much), but if they choose to just do something, it will affect all flavours.
The Lubuntu team has no interest in maintaining a Chromium package. You might start up a topic on the Ubuntu Discourse to see if maybe you can round up some community members interested in the idea, though.
There are no snaps installed…yet many of the items listed in Discover are actually snap packages, and unless you read the fine print VERY carefully, the cancer infects your system and you say there’s nothing you can do about it? Great work, guys!
I really don’t understand your attitude. Rather than try and help me and offer suggestions, the best you can come up with is “You’re doing it wrong”?
No wonder Linux is so impenetrable to outsiders with “help” like this. I’m done here.
I’m replying to your this on my Lubuntu 20.04 system using the chromium snap, and yeah I do have more dislikes than the deb we had back in 19.04 & before, but most are worked around.
The snapped version was introduced June-2019 (19.10 cycle) so many issues have been resolved, eg. you can access folders outside of home (within limits) if you snap connect chromium:removable-media (refer https://askubuntu.com/questions/1184357/why-cant-chromium-suddenly-access-any-partition-except-for-home/1184374#1184374). I had issues on loading the system, which were resolved by me being a little slower in my loads after initial login (the program doesn’t appear to like starting whilst it’s updating itself).
FYI: my box is more than a decade old, so problems I encounter with speed maybe more noticeable due to my slow box as I have no ssd, no pentium i series cpu, but it still works for me
The reasons for changes have been well documented (refer https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/call-for-testing-chromium-browser-deb-to-snap-transition/11179 and other questions on that site), but we still have choice (there are loads of browsers available). I do also recall a new PPA that was going to try and keep up-to-date, but I didn’t watch it for long, and don’t remember its detail (a quick search and I can find PPA focal/20.04 with versions of chromium higher & equal to my snapped version but I won’t provide as I don’t know if that’s the one referenced on community.ubuntu.com or not, nor have time to check out the creator)
Lubuntu does not support an upgrade from 18.04 to 20.04. And if you don’t like snaps, simply don’t use it. Well, it means that you have to find either a workaround for your chromium problem or another distribution.
There are a lot of other distributions without snaps, e.g. Arch Linux.
You always have the freedom to use a distribution, which fits your needs better. You can always compile open source software. You can create your own .deb packages or snaps.
Chromium was never packaged by Lubuntu. And it was never part of the Lubuntu standard installation. What’s your point asking here?
Yes, Firefox is Firefox and Chromium is Chromium.
What do you expect from Lubuntu? That we create every six weeks (or more often because of security patches) a package for you?
Discover is not developed by Lubuntu. Discover is only one way to install packages. And for normal users, it is sufficient.
I think that’s a great suggestion except for one caveat: Chromium is Chrome minus all the closed source/proprietary elements. If the OP doesn’t care, that’s the best suggestion of all, especially given they provide not only a Debian package, but a package repository to ensure regular updates through the normal package management system.
I’m from Brazil and the use of Chromium has several limitations here. Some banks packages of security just don’t work with Chromium. I think was decision of own developers of package to just check Chrome and Firefox.
Where I’m work only Firefox is approved to use business applications.
