 For those of you who have been watching the channel for a while Well, you'll know that I've been on the search for a really good very stable highly functional browser and I've Used them all like every single one of them. I've used or at least had a little look at I can't say that I've lived in them all because like Vivaldi I didn't use didn't use that for more than probably 10 minutes It's just so bloated and there's so much just junk in there that I just couldn't use it Waterfox didn't or in LibreWolf really didn't catch my fancy simply because there's so much stuff that I had to Re-enable in order to actually have it function for me and that kind of defeated the purpose of those browsers There are a few that I keep returning to like obviously Firefox is one that I've used for a long time off and on Despite having many problems with it I've used Microsoft Edge a couple times and gotten a lot of flak for that on the channel because it's well It's Microsoft Edge I've pretty much written that off because they've turned out to be Evil people again, so I've Abandoned that project for a long time. There aren't only really a few browsers that I just won't use one of those is Google Chrome I just refused to use it. So I've tried over and over again to find a really good browser now I want to use Qt browser as my daily driver I really do and I've made several videos on it just begging and pleading for it to be really good And there are many features on it that I just absolutely adore and the fact that you can go through and use a terminal file manager as your file Picker is just something that I Find amazing and one in every single piece of Linux software But there's a problem with Qt browser and that is the ad-blocking is god-awful it's just so bad and it makes it pretty much unusable for me now I know that there are alternative solutions to ad-blocking all that stuff it Requires quite a bit of effort in order to actually get set up and eventually I'll get to that point But me let's just say Qt browser is just not my Is not able to be my daily driver just because of that reason right now So I'm still on the lookout so a few weeks ago I did a video on Qt browser and Ranger and Someone in the comments asked me Matt Have you ever used on Google chromium and the answer to that is no I've never used on Google chromium I didn't actually know what it was. I'd heard of it, but I'd never downloaded it I just assumed it was mostly just chromium without the Google bits and that there wasn't gonna be that big of a difference And for the most part I was right It is just chromium but without the Google bits But really chromium doesn't have a lot of the Google bits now either like that all the syncing capability of chromium has been ripped out So really all that's left there is probably just the tracking stuff So I'd never actually used on Google chromium because I just made that assumption So I decided I was gonna do it I was gonna download on Google chromium and use it for a week and now I have and I have some thoughts So let's go ahead and take a look on Google chromium and you can take a look and see if you think there are any differences So this is on Google chromium. It looks like Google Chrome. It really really does and that's fine I've gotten used to the looks now that one of the first things that I missed from Firefox is the ability to use user Chrome That CSS in order to customize the the user Chrome and the UI of the browser I missed that a lot over the last week. I've gotten used to it. This is fine It's I have found that I'm actually opening up more tabs now and keeping them open longer Then I was in Firefox because in Firefox I had this one liner user Chrome that kind of made it impossible to open up a ton of tabs Like you could do it, but they got scrunched up so fast that it just made it all a messy So I got in the habit of closing tabs really quickly when I didn't need them Now that I'm using like a standard browser layout. I tend to leave tabs open longer So but that's not really a browser thing That's just because I no longer have that one liner for me to be in that habit out of the box Uncle Chromium is a pain in the ass to set up So I'm just gonna put this out there So the first thing is if you're on Arch Linux and you want to install this thing There are many ways to do it But chances are the first thing you're going to do is check and see if it's in one of the repositories whether the community repository or the arch user repository and it's not in the community repositories I looked unfortunately, there's not a binary there. You'd think that there would be but there's not Probably just because they don't want to maintain yet another browser But it is in the a you are so I was like, yes when a you are is awesome, right? Well this time my my lovely a you are just kind of let me down because there's not a binary of Uncle Chromium in the a you are it's only done uncompiled version So if every time you download this you have to compile it and That takes a long time and a lot of CPU power to do like I have a Ryzen 7 3,800 X in this computer so that's like eight cores sixteen threads and it maxes it out a hundred percent for Almost 45 minutes like that's how long it takes for it to compile and If that was just a one-time thing not a big deal. I could put up with that I'm not happy about it, but whatever but that's not as one up one time thing every time there's an update to the browser it has to recompile and It takes about the same amount of time for it to recompile and it just completely slows slows down my computer I feel like I'm on the gateway computer. I bought in 2000, you know, it's it's just It's not a good experience. Now. That's not a Google Chromium problem. That's just the fact that there's not a binary for arch Now the thing is I was like, you know fine. I'm going to see if there's a snap or a flatback There's not a snap package for on Google Chromium. I looked first like I was going to just use snap I know everybody knows that I hate snaps for the passion, but I was just gonna use snaps whatever I have snap installed because of Reasons and I was just gonna use it, but there's not a snap There is a flat pack from flat hub that you can download and I did so I Uninstalled on Google Chromium from that I had installed from the you are and installed the flat pack and had to go through the setup all over again That's my number one on Google Chromium criticism is that it doesn't Do well with transferring data from other browsers. So because there's no syncing capability There's no account like sign up at all There's no way for that data to go from version to version If you switch between the compile compiled version and the flat pack version for example There's no way for that those things to kind of go together So what I thought would happen would be that when you have the compiled version it creates a folder in your dot-config file that That's called chromium and has all your stuff in it, but the flat hub version doesn't use it So I had to go through and reset it up again not a huge deal But it did take some time and I'll explain more about why it's such a pain in the ass in a minute But the biggest issue for me at least everybody knows that I'm more aesthetically Inclined than most at least in terms of my window managers and my stuff I like I want it to look nice at least The flat hub version doesn't respect GTK themes like at all like it looked like garbage And I didn't want to use it So I uninstalled it and went back and recompiled the one from the aur Which took another 45 minutes and by that time I'd already you know removed the chromium directory from my Config file, so I had to go through and reset it up a third time It was not a pleasant experience So let me tell you talk about setting it up out of the box the Google Chrome extensions I should say don't work out of the box They just don't you have to enable another you have to download extension from a github page or from the aur If you want Install that manually and then you can use the Google web store now I understand because they don't want any of the Google stuff in there That's the reason why they pulled it out not a huge deal but it's not necessarily something that you can find out easily because There's when you first open up you get a screen that says web store with an icon in the center You click on it you get nothing like it leads to like a it's not even a 404 It's just like a file not found here or something and that's not a good experience at all So then you go up to the search bar and you you know search how to enable Google Chrome web store On on Google chromium and you get nothing because there's no default search engine at all like it's there's nothing set You have to go into the settings and enable a search engine for yourself Which is fine again, but it's just another step and then though my very first time when I didn't know anything about it I went through and found all this stuff I got the the extensions I need working like bitworn and Better tweet deck and several others like you block origin. I need all these things right to make a good browser. I Got all those things downloaded. I went through and signed into all of my accounts You know both YouTube accounts Facebook all this stuff and then I closed the web browser I like did an update on a computer and restarted my computer when I came back to the web browser I wasn't logged into anything again I had went through and logged into everything and it looked me completely out and that's because by default It clears your cookies every time the web browser is closed again, not a big deal But that first time it kind of pissed me off because I just went through and signed You know into everything and so I had to go through and sign up everything again Again, not a big deal, but it's just one of those things It's in it's in a process that you have to go through every single time The the worst experience I had with this and I will get to the positive things here in a minute I promise. I know I'm going through and just doing negative after negative after negative for the most part Experience has been good, but I just want to talk about the negative things first because just because It's just what's really on my mind, but the the worst experience that I had Was the bookmarks manager so by default when you want your bookmarks you can import them from another browser So in my case I still had my firefox Configuration file in dot config and I'm not going to delete that I'm going to keep it because eventually I probably go back to firefox Everybody knows I will I always do so what I did is I imported all of my bookmarks from firefox into on Google Chromium and I don't think this is that this is a on Google Chromium problem I think it's a chrome problem when you import Firefox or when you import bookmarks that way it dumps them all into one folder It doesn't remember the organization of them at all It remembers that there are folders that you had created in other browsers But anything that was in those folders all gets dumped into like the first folder. It's a mess and you know fine Whatever it's it that's a pain in the ass, but I could have gotten past it The problem is there's no drag-and-drop here in the bookmark manager at all I mean there is it looks like there is like but if I drag this Facebook thing down It doesn't actually do anything like there's no you can you drag it over here I guess but you can't drag it and reposition it You know you can do that from the bar But if you're using the bookmark manager, it does doesn't work So you have to use copy and paste the problem is is that the first time I had to do it I did not know that so I actually had to go through and Like I can't even really remember how I did it was it was the long convoluted process that just was a pain Yes, and I was thoroughly frustrated by the end of it now as You remember at the beginning of the video I talked about how I've switched back and forth between versions of on Google Chromium couple times I've moved from the Compiled version to the flat pack back to the compiled version That's what is the biggest problem is that every time I did that I had to reset up my bookmarks So I've gotten actually really good at it And I've you know I now I know how I can go through and select all of them You know control x and control c and control v all that kind of stuff in order to copy paste and all that stuff into the proper Positions I've gotten good at it, but it's not a good experience. It's just not and the thing is I want to set Actually, I did set up on Google Chromium on other distros So I'm long-term testing Fedora right now That video should be up pretty soon And I wanted to switch from Firefox to on Google Chromium on Fedora so that I could maintain my Usage of it for at least the whole week and the good news is on Fedora. There is a binary So you do pseudo DNF install on Google Chromium and you get a binary of it installs really fast. It's really good It's not the flat hub version. So it's actually really usable and that was a good experience But the problem is again, I had to go through and set up the bookmarks in so that was the fourth time I had to do it. I also did it on that computer back there The lack of syncing functionality is a bad thing for me I understand why it's not there, but it's just one of those things where I Really wish it was there because it's kind of one of those things that I just have to have like I Have browsers all over the place when I add a bookmark, which I do all the time I want to be able to have that stuff sync between versions of that browser Whether it's on this computer on you know a different hard drive or on a different computer, whatever It just is not there and there's not as it seemed to be a very good like it's web extension Like I thought maybe there'd be an extension that would allow me to do this. I couldn't find a good one So honestly that syncing functionality is the number one problem I had within Google Chromium outside of the whole compiled thing So I thought I would talk now a little bit about what I like about it So first of all it is fast. It is really fast It blows firefox out of the water in terms of speed now That's not something I don't know whether or not that's quantifiable or not from a feeling perspective It feels just tons faster Also firefox used to be like the king of smooth scrolling like if you wanted to get into a web page And you were reading something like a long article or a story or whatever and you were scrolling through and it would scroll Really smoothly in firefox. That's not the case anymore for whatever reason in firefox It's just janky and it you know it scrolls like four lines at a time. It's not smooth at all with Google Chromium That's not a problem. It's smooth. It's very very smooth. The scrolling is fantastic. I love it I also have not had a single problem with any web page rendering in this browser Which is a fantastic experience for someone who's always having those problems now Every time I say that every time I say that firefox has a problem rendering the web I get about five people in the comments saying all I've never had this experience before well Good for you. I'm glad you've had that kind of luck. I don't have that kind of look I've heard from multiple people including several Youtubers that have had the exact same problem that I've had with several websites in firefox that just won't render Q browser has the same problem a lot of these very small web browsers that are based on Either other engines are just doing things a different way often have time Have a hard time rendering certain web pages It's just the nature of being very small going into a chromium based web browser that is Basically running the same engine as you'd get in Google Chrome means that the web renders Beautifully like I've had no problems whatsoever Except for Netflix like okay, so Netflix won't run in this browser. I don't know why It didn't say anything usually when you're in a browser that won't run is incompatible with Netflix because a DRM or something You'll get like a gigantic screen saying hey, you can't use this browser. It doesn't have DRM or something This said something about web RTC. You're I don't even know it was really weird Netflix just wouldn't run. I'm still investigating It's not a big deal because I don't use Netflix all that much anyways But it's just another those things that you should know before you go into it so my overall thoughts are That I like on Google Chromium quite a bit I know I spent an awful long time on the negative aspects that I experienced setting it up But once I got past the setup process once I got past getting the bookmarks where I need them to be Once I got past compiling it for the first time. I Like it. I really do. I think it's great. I don't think that it's my daily driver If I were on something like a Debian based distro iron fedora Where I didn't have to deal with compiling it every time there was update I could probably see myself using it full-time, but on arch where there's not a binary it's just not necessarily something that I could see myself using because Browsers get updated a lot like they get updated an awful lot And I don't want to have to every three or four days recompile this for four, you know 45 minutes to an hour. I really don't and you know, it's If it was just that one time it wouldn't have been a big deal like I can put up with it one time But every time it updates is just a deal breaker. And again, that's not an un-google Chromium problem I could go to the github page and download the binary from there But keeping that updated sounds like a pain in the ass to even though I wouldn't have to compile it So on arch I this just is not a workable browser for me just for that one reason what this experience has led me to believe however is that I could use Brave as my daily driver much easier than I thought I could before because there's always been one problem with Brave that I just could not get past and that's the download bar at the bottom every time you download something in a Chromium based web browser that hasn't gone through and actually changed this functionality a gigantic honking bar Comes along the bottom and it doesn't go away. It doesn't it just doesn't go away It stays there forever until you dismiss it. I Did I despise it like it's the worst thing that human kindness ever invented it's just so bad And I don't know what designer had decided that was a good idea, but they need to get rid of it The thing is because I was in a Chromium browser now for a week I had to live with that thing and I couldn't like I couldn't put up with it So I went into the web store and found an extension that queries whether or not the bar is available is Visible and that then shuts it down. I think it closes the bar so The fact that that extension exists and I'd be able to use that in Brave I think that Brave is probably where I'm going to next and the thing about Brave is they have syncing capabilities So that should make syncing bookmarks way way easier So Brave is probably where I'm going to settle that it's going to have all of the Good things about on Google Chromium, but without the whole you have to compile it for all the time and The quirks of not having any you're syncing and stuff like that So overall it was a good experience. So in the comment section below Let me know if you've tried on Google Chromium whether or not you like it or whether or not you use it I would love to hear from you You can follow me on Twitter at the Linux cast where I'd love to hear from you as well I love talking to people on Twitter. It's fantastic. Even though we probably shouldn't be using Twitter. It doesn't really matter You can also support me on patreon at patreon.com slash sony's cast before I go I'd like to take a moment to thank my current patrons Sid a Devon Chris east goes web gen 2 is fun to Patrick O primus Marcus Magland Jackson of tool Steve a Mitchell Art Center Amityus carbon dated Merrick camp Joshua Lee J dog the VCs rock Peter a crucible. Thanks everybody for watching I'll see you next time