ungoogled-chromium VS Waterfox

Cromite[0] is the best on Android, it's a privacy-oriented open source patchset on top of Chromium.

Cromite has a desktop build, but it's a bit more experimental than the mobile build, so you can use Ungoogled Chromium[1] instead. Ungoogled is also a privacy-oriented open source patchset on top of Chromium. Check the beta flags to enable some more interesting features like getClientRect anti-fingerprinting measures (unfortunately breaks some React-based sites that go into infinite re-render loop).

Both of these browsers selectively include patches from Brave, but they are community-oriented builds so imo more trustworthy than Brave, which continues to package various shady anti-features and always will because it's backed by a for-profit company.

LibreWolf[2] is the nicest Firefox-based one for desktop, I think. It's pretty hardcore, though, I most only use it to visit mainstream social media sites.

I tried a bunch of the Firefox-based ones on mobile and none of them clicked for me. Cromite is just too slick on Android. Put the address bar at the bottom and off you go. Only downside is no online syncing of tabs and bookmarks, but meh. You can save all open tabs to bookmark bar in one hit then export your bookmarks, send the file through whatever E2EE channel you want to your other device and import then reopen them again.

[0] https://github.com/uazo/cromite

[1] https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium

[2] https://librewolf.net/

For those that like Chromium but want to remove any integration with Google, there's Ungoogled Chromium

https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium

If you're entirely partial to Chromium browsers, use Ungoogled Chrome https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium

what about https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium

Firefox or Ungoogled Chromium (needs to update uBlock manually) in Incognito window with unchanged vanilla uBlock Origin with lists updated and no other plugins and without YouTube account. Works perfectly. Also FreeTube.

Ungoogled Chromium is a Chromium-based browser with Google services stripped out.

- Project and source: https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium

- Binaries: https://ungoogled-software.github.io/ungoogled-chromium-bina...

Using these sort of downstream patch set browsers is rarely a good idea. If it has multiple full-time developers from a respected org dedicated to it, then it can be justifiable (Tor Browser, Brave), but take a look at the gaps in time for these two pages:

https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium/rel...

https://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs//main/c/ch...

There's often days you're going without security patches. If you want a browser without Google tracking, Firefox is a much better choice.

While these screenshots use Google Chrome, they will also work on all 'Chromium' based web browsers, like Brave, Vivaldi, ungoogled-chromium, etc. Window's Edge is also compatible, though some the button locations are changed.

I would highly recommend the Ungoogled Chromium fork instead: https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium

Entirely volunteer maintained, there is no for-profit entity behind it looking to do crypto referrals or ad swapping or anything like that.

> [Monday](https://github.com/WaterfoxCo/Waterfox/releases/tag/G5.1.9),

With 4GB of RAM I would recommend that you use the ESR version or some lightweight fork like Waterfox that I've been testing these days. Is really lighter and can use Firefox Sync. But it has his problems. I would prefer to go with ESR and deactivating smooth scrolling if I was you.

> I wish Unity didn't die

Hi from Unity on Ubuntu 23.04.

I am running the Unity flavour:

https://ubuntuunity.org/

It uses the latest Unity 7.7, released earlier this year:

https://gitlab.com/ubuntu-unity/unity-x/unityx

I run it on 3 or 4 machines, one of which has 2 screens and one of which has 3. Works great, scales well, handles modern Ubuntu just fine.

I use it with the Waterfox browser, which integrates natively with the Unity global menu bar, without any addons or config. I am currently on -- (hits alt-H, A) -- version 5.1.9.

https://www.waterfox.net/

Post issues on Gihtub for reporting bugs. https://github.com/WaterfoxCo/Waterfox/issues

I've made sure security updates have now been available ASAP for quite a while now. G5.1.9 released on Monday, for example. This is a day before Mozilla, but mostly because Mozilla spend a day or two doing QA.

I've been a fan of Waterfox for some time now

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1201/extend-panel-men...

Of course, GNOME broke it in a later release. This is why no amount of extensions are an answer: they break. Extensions do not work from one release of GNOME to another, and when they fail, the whole desktop often fails.

> Also, it’s not really Gnome’s fault that linux doesn’t have as great metadata from apps to be able to display the apps’ menubars (unity could do it).

False. Gtk exposes this; Unity didn't have stored metadata on lots of apps, it just displayed the existing controls' contents somewhere else. If you run brand new Gtk apps on Unity today, they get panel menus. This was not some clever hack.

Unity is still around:

https://unityd.org/

The distro is back again:

https://ubuntuunity.org/

Brand new apps, like Waterfox, integrate with it fine although they did not exist when it was written.

https://www.waterfox.net/

> With all due respect, that is bullshit reasoning. Selectively displaying useful things is the whole point of UIs.

I disagree.

1. I want to choose what is shown or not. In order to choose, I have to be able to see it. In other words, it needs to be there at first, and then I can choose whether I want to show it or not.

If I can't see it in the first place, then how am I to know it's there?

It's the users' choice what is shown or not. It is not up to the developer to say "they don't need to see this and I'm going to hide it away."

Any piece of software that does that is user hostile.

> Otherwise why would you roll up your window?

Again: it's my choice. I get to choose. It's my computer. They are my windows. I choose if they are shown or not.

That is the point of free software: Choice.

GNOME says it's free, but it takes choices away from me. I object to that.

> Why do you have menus in the first place that hide their content until clicked?

To save space for my document. You can't show everything all the time: that is why you leave it up to the user to choose what they show and when.

(Incidentally, this is also why in my opinion the Microsoft ribbon based fluent interface fails. It tries to show far too much all at once, and the result is that it wastes a huge amount of screen space, and is actually more difficult to hunt through for what I need when I need it.)

> That is no longer the corner, so it doesn’t benefit from this law at all.

False.

Fitt's law is about target size.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law#Implications_for...

It is not about corners. It is about edges too.

By the way I do have a clue about this stuff... for example here is a screenshot of a piece of software which I designed about a dozen years which makes use of Fitt's Law.

https://twitter.com/SimplicityComps/status/54085863397497241...

> The super key is the same as the windows, or the mac command key.

So, yes, but those environments don't suddenly change your entire screen.

> Also often called Meta.

That is a different key. Meta and super are not interchangeable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_key

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_key_(keyboard_button)

> What’s the problem here exactly? Is alt+f4 written over the screen? Or ctrl+c? Especially that the same behavior is expected from the windows start menu.

The problem here, as I'm attempting to spell out, is that there were existing conventions for this stuff, and GNOME does not respect them.

> It’s a community for its users. You clearly don’t use it nor contribute to it either by work or financially, so it is not really fair to ask someone else to work for you specifically..

No. What I do is, I write about it for a living. I analyse this stuff, I draw comparisons, I point out weaknesses and strengths. That's my job.

In my professional capacity, the GNOME foundation invited me to its GUADEC conference about six or seven years back. I asked a lot of awkward and difficult questions, because that's my job, and I didn't get invited back.

> Literally every OS and distro suck at it.

False. For example, using most other interfaces, such as XFCE, I can treat a multiscreen desktop as one big space. I can have one panel at the far left, and one on the far right, of the entire multi-monitor desktop.

But GNOME doesn't let me do that.

Why not?

> Nonetheless, I feel you are reasoning from a very biased point

Because I disagree with you, you think that I'm biased?

Do you think that everyone who disagrees with you is biased?

Have you considered that perhaps I have opinions, and can draw upon years of knowledge and experience, and make reasoned arguments based on evidence, and that is not the same thing as being biased?

> I don’t think it is as fruitful a discussion.

So because I can counter your arguments with examples and reasoning, you don't think that it's fruitful discussion?

Personally, I think that the arguments where people can defend their points, and produce evidence to back them up, are the most fruitful kind.