How can I get proper Chromium back?

[VMC]

Not sure what ungoogled-chromium is, but what about these binaries:
https://ungoogled-software.github.io...mium-binaries/

[The Cog]

I was saddened when I went to VLC's site and saw they are now packaging as a snap.

On Xubuntu 19.10 it's still a normal program. I guess we'll have to see what 20.04 brings.

[ajgreeny]

On Xubuntu 19.10 it's still a normal program. I guess we'll have to see what 20.04 brings.

On the early daily ISOs (mine's Xubuntu from Tuesday 22 Oct) Chromium is snap or nothing. You can install it from synaptic package manager, so presumably also with sudo apt install chromium-browser but that command and synaptic install it as a transitional package which then installs the snap.

It's my first use of a snap package and so far I have not had much time to fully test it, but I am disappointed that it may be available only in that manner.

[The Cog]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. Yes, chromium-browser installs a snap package. But VLC (for the moment) is still a normal deb package.

[PaulW2U]

It's my first use of a snap package and so far I have not had much time to fully test it, but I am disappointed that it may be available only in that manner.

The Ubuntu community have been given more than sufficient notice of the intention to provide the Chromium browser as a snap rather than a .deb package.

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread....153&p=13771852 was created back in May 2018 and updated by me on several occasions but received no response until recently.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/inten...snap-only/5987 also originates from that time so Canonical's Desktop Team have given more than sufficient notice of a change that will not only reduce their workload but will quicken the release of updates to a web browser that they have chosen to support.

[TheFu]

The Ubuntu community have been given more than sufficient notice of the intention to provide the Chromium browser as a snap rather than a .deb package.

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread....153&p=13771852 was created back in May 2018 and updated by me on several occasions but received no response until recently.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/inten...snap-only/5987 also originates from that time so Canonical's Desktop Team have given more than sufficient notice of a change that will not only reduce their workload but will quicken the release of updates to a web browser that they have chosen to support.

I learned about snaps when problems with VLC supporting DVD playback started being reported here and the normal fixes didn't help. Also, playing media located on USB storage didn't work for some people. Then the output from df -h started showing "loop" devices which never existed previously.

Probably not the introduction to snaps the hard working desktop team would have preferred. Certainly, many things about snaps are excellent, well-executed.

no chromium updates as deb package for 14.04 Trusty - press info

A post about chromium updates for 14.04 in 2018 doesn't exactly get my attention.
Canonical Switching from Debian Packaging to Constrained "Snaps" would have gotten much more attention, perhaps.

Discourse? Never used it.

Solutions to workflow problems would be appreciated. How do we have snaps run in monitor-only mode, with relaxed constraints?
* allow access to any storage for read/write, especially USB and NFS storage?
* allow 1 program to communicate with "helper" programs, either in or outside snaps? I'm thinking PDF viewers or having thunderbird send a URL to Chromium or Chromium to send a mailto:// URL to Thunderbird.

Snaps certainly have a place for high-risk programs like email and browsers, provided that existing workflows are still supported. I've been using firejail for years now with high risk programs. Firejail allows me to easily configure access to storage areas locally. Also, because I set it up, the fact that the a package install isn't using debian packages isn't hidden from users.

Gotta ask - what is the reasoning behind making gnome-calc a snap package? Is that a high risk app?

Perhaps it is ignorant of me, but most of the Ubuntu news I get comes from OMGUbuntu or /. or Phoronix.com . /. is rapidly dropping out, since they started blocking anonymous users. I tend not to read posts that aren't for LTS releases either.
I don't know how to communicate important ideas requesting feedback from normal Ubuntu Desktop users. Alas, I'm not a normal desktop user - rocking fvwm here.

I worry about using snaps on my low memory systems with just 2GB of RAM, but I also worry about RAM use on my huge systems with 8GB of RAM.

I can also admit that I'm confused by release names. Sure, I know that b is old than c, but mapping the to the YY.MM is beyond me at this point. The numbers provide so much more information.

[PaulW2U]

Discourse? Never used it.

You should at least take a look: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/

Many of your questions about Ubuntu's future plans will be or have been answered there. Ubuntu's developers, whether employed by Canonical or not, post there and join intelligent discussions. That's something that they don't do here.

The reason for my previous post was that the reasoning of the transition of the Chromium browser from a .deb to a snap was published some 18 months ago. It seems that many readers of these forums are still unaware of Canonical's plans with regards to the future of how they deliver the Chromium browser to their users.

I'm deliberately not going to refer to your other points regarding snaps as I know that you and I differ greatly on that method of packaging. You obviously don't like snaps but I'm prepared to report bugs and issues in the hope that the snap technology improves over time. I'm sure it will

[TheFu]

You should at least take a look: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/

Many of your questions about Ubuntu's future plans will be or have been answered there. Ubuntu's developers, whether employed by Canonical or not, post there and join intelligent discussions. That's something that they don't do here.

The reason for my previous post was that the reasoning of the transition of the Chromium browser from a .deb to a snap was published some 18 months ago. It seems that many readers of these forums are still unaware of Canonical's plans with regards to the future of how they deliver the Chromium browser to their users.

I'm deliberately not going to refer to your other points regarding snaps as I know that you and I differ greatly on that method of packaging. You obviously don't like snaps but I'm prepared to report bugs and issues in the hope that the snap technology improves over time. I'm sure it will

There is no doubt to me that everyone working on the snap rollout is trying to be helpful and that snaps most definitely solve real issues in the world today. Sorry that I haven't conveyed it before. I apologize.

[The Cog]

@PaulW2U : I can see that from your perspective, I must have been living in a cave for the past couple of years. Ineeed, I've been short of free time so that's not far wrong. But from my perspective, I am reminded of the "Beware of the leopard" notice in the Hitchiker's Guide.

Since installing 19.10, there have been three new paper-cuts with chromium. Firstly, it takes so long to start that I keep thinking "What is wrong with this machine?". Now I know it's a snap, I guess that's the reason. Secondly, it forgot all my passwords and seemed to unable to remember them every day when I re-entered them and told it to. Now I know that's a known bug, and thanks to you I know a fix. Thirdly, whenever I use the mouse to click a different tab, it pops up a big box just a couple of millimetres away from the tab that my cursor touches and repeats the title. To me, that's unexpected, pointless and annoying.

These are on top of some other papar cuts that have irritated me for a while:
It refuses to use my chosen title-bar theme but enforces its own totally different title and buttons style instead.
It no longer shows the URL that I'm visiting. It doesn't show whether it's http or https, and I gather it now also hides some words in the rest of the URL too. Apparently, I'm too stupid to understand URLs and need protecting from their complexities, and hiding parts of them do that for me.
They recently removed (or maybe just hid rather well) the ability to choose my cookie policy on a site-by-site basis. I haven't been able to just whitelist my favourite sites.

So it's not just that it's a snap that made me uninstall chromium, it's just an accumulation of paper-cuts over time making me feel it's time for a change.

[ajgreeny]

And while we're discussing these details, how can I import all the settings from my 18.04 chromium.deb installation into the snap version?

Never mind; I think I have figured this out but will be interested to hear whether I did it correctly.

1. Copy the ~/.config/chromium folder from the standard 18.04 .deb installation.
2. In 19.10 or 20.04 go to ~/snap/chromium/909/config/chromium and rename that as chromium.bak
3. Paste the copied /chromium folder from 18.04 in place of the renamed the snap version.
4. Delete the chromium.bak folder if you wish to.