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While Google Chrome is by far the most popular PC web browser, its open-source big brother Chromium doesn’t have a lot of users, but it has always had fans on desktop Linux. Now, however, this love affair is in trouble.
Google says it recently found unnamed third-party Chromium-based browsers with built-in Google cloud-based features like Chrome Sync and Click to Call that were only intended for Google Chrome users. In other words, “This meant that a small fraction of users could log into their Google account and store their personal Chrome sync data, such as bookmarks, not only with Google Chrome, but also with some third-party browsers based. on Chromium. ”
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Google was not amused.
Starting March 15, Google announced that it will restrict access to many Chrome application programming interfaces (APIs) in Chromium starting March 15, 2021. This means that users using the Chromium web browser or any Other web browser based on its open source code base won’t be able to use most of Google’s specific API enabled services. This includes the ability to sync Chrome bookmarks, check your spelling, find your contacts, translate text, and more.
Many users are not satisfied now either. Thom Holwerda, editor-in-chief of OSNews, spoke for many when he wrote that Google “doesn’t close a security hole, they just require everyone to use Chrome. Or to put it bluntly, they don’t want you to access their Google API functionality without using proprietary software (Google Chrome). ”
Developers can, after clearing the hurdles to get API keys and an OAuth 2.0 client ID, get keys for those APIs. But, Google points out, “that the keys you have now acquired are not for distribution and should not be shared with other users.”
In theory, a developer could extract API keys from the main Chrome and maintain Google’s build functionality of their Chromium. However, it is only a matter of asking for a trial.
Additionally, Jochen Eisinger, Google Engineering Director for Chrome Trust & Safety, told the Google Chromium Developer Group: “We will not remove the API from your key, but we will limit the quota to the development quota. … this will make the keys unsuitable for production use. “These” APIs were not designed for use by third-party software, so unless a complete rewrite, there is unfortunately no [other] option.”
So where does that leave the Linux distributors who bundled Chromium together? Between the devil and the deep sea.
Porting Chromium to Linux is not trivial. Alan Pope, Canonical Community Manager for the Ubuntu Linux Engineering Department, explained why Canonical started shipping Chromium in an Ubuntu Snap container rather than a DEB package:
Maintaining a single version of Chromium is a significant investment of time for the Ubuntu Desktop team who work with the Ubuntu Security team to provide updates for each stable release. As teams support many stable versions of Ubuntu, the amount of work is compounded. Comparing this workload with other Linux distributions that have only one sliding version supported lacks the nuance of supporting multiple long-term support (LTS) and non-LTS versions.
Google releases a new major version of Chromium every six weeks, typically with several minor versions to address security vulnerabilities in between. Each new stable release must be built for each supported Ubuntu release – 16.04, 18.04, 19.04 and the next 19.10 – and for all supported architectures (amd64, i386, arm, arm64).
While Snap made it easier, it’s still not easy. Sources say Canonical has yet to decide whether it will support Chromium without end-user support for Google service-specific APIs.
Linux Mint has recently started to integrate its own Chromium browser. The head of the Mint, Clément “Clem” Lefebvre, sticks to Chromium. “We’re not going to do anything. We will continue to pack Chromium.”
However, Fedora, the Linux distro for the Red Hat community, was seriously considering dumping Chromium. Tom Callaway, the maintainer of Chromium’s Fedora, explained that this is because Google is “cutting off access to sync and” other Google-exclusive APIs “from all versions except Google Chrome. will make the Fedora Chromium version significantly less functional (along with all other Chrome packaged distributions). ”
However, upon reflection, Calloway explained “I never said I was going to remove Chromium from Fedora. I said I was seriously considering doing this, but after much thought, I decided that there were enough users who still wanted it, even without the functionality provided by the Google API. “So as of now, Fedora’s version of Chromium no longer supports the soon to be deprecated APIs.
Calloway really wants Google to reconsider its position. But, he sees little chance. “What frustrates me,” Calloway tweeted, “is how no one on the Chrome team understands the concept of creating an open source community. Nothing from Chr’s maintainers ever hurt Chrome, they just made it stronger. ”
Other Linux distributions are getting closer to dumping Chromium. Arch Linux officials have given it some thought but, for now, they will continue to keep Chromium even after the March 15 deadline.
Eric Hameleers, who manages Chromium for Slackware Linux, is abandoning Chromium. “I will not pack or distribute a Chromium for Slackware if that package is crippled by not having a connection to Chrome Sync. I will not pack a Chromium build with Google’s own ID and secret built in. Instead of that I will do the right thing: advise people not to use Chrome but to switch to Firefox. ”
With this move, Google has alienated the code maintainers and developers of several Linux distributions. When Linux Chromium users find out that the latest versions won’t work as they did before, they’ll be upset too.
Admittedly, this is only a small number. But, that leaves many others with a bad taste in their mouths as the Google failed open-source community in this instance. This, in the end, will matter more than the immediate impact of this decision on programmers and end users.
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