Linux Mint Now Packaging Their Own Chromium, Developing New IPTV Player

[danmcgrew]

I ditched Linux Mint when they stopped offering a KDE Plasma version so I don't care what they do, but I'm curios...
Why don't they build a version of Ungoogled-Chromium instead of the plain Chromium which is know to still have a lot of spyware from Google ?
Don't the Linux Mint developers care about their users' privacy ?

I ditched Linux Mint when it became too hard (any more) for Mint to listen to its user base (THE outstanding hallmark of the original Mint), and instead simply started blindly copying (almost) everything Ubuntu did and / or does (for those of you who really follow Mint, you'll know that this happened starting with Mint 18; version 17.3 was the very last for Mint as Number One in anybody's book; the very last time).

I also ditched Mint when it became obvious that their Blog and Forums had turned into one gigantic echo chamber--forget the cries of outrage from the Mint sheep if one posted anything other than glowing, unbridled praise. When I pointed out that Mint needed to pay attention when MX-Linux was on the rise, I was told, by a forum Worldwide Moderator, to use something else if I didn't like Mint's (lack of) strategy; this from one of Clement Lefebvre's anointed--a "Worldwide Moderator", no less. [One very well known, very well respected technology writer reported on this phenomenon; how he and the column he writes was personally pilloried in the Mint Forums; and, being the gentleman he is, simply elected to not participate in anything having to do with Mint from then on. Good move, Lefebvre.]

To your last question: Linux Mint developers--read this as 'Clement Lefebvre'--obviously, and from all indications ever since the abdication of (a) listening to its customer base, and (b) anything approaching continual, and continuing, originality and the hard work that entails (and, make no mistake about this: this is precisely, exactly what got Mint its well-earned Number One position for so many years) do not care about very much any more.

[xAlt7x]

snap is working really well. netflix working whatsapp, super fast, this effort is useless but ok, their choice

Snap version doesn't support Plasma Browser Integration (and some other extensions). Also currenly you can't use VAAPI there (same with deb but at least someone could enable it and rebuild package).

[andre30correia]

Snap version doesn't support Plasma Browser Integration (and some other extensions). Also currenly you can't use VAAPI there (same with deb but at least someone could enable it and rebuild package).

I'm using vaapi with snap maybe you should look better, plasma integration how? I don't use Kde

[Awesomeness]

Why don't they build a version of Ungoogled-Chromium instead of the plain Chromium which is know to still have a lot of spyware from Google ?

Considerin what you said: Why even build Chromium at all? Just using Chrome seems easier and just as spying.

[gregzeng]

Brave, Chrome, Chromium. Eloston, Iron, Maxthon, Opera, Otter, Slimjet, Superbird, Uc, Vivaldi

In Linux, there are 12 Chromium-based web browsers in my personal database. This contrasts with the 66 brand names available for Windows. My preferred is Slimjet, on both Windows & Linux. It is one of the very rare Chromium browsers that can use the full range of add-ons & extensions. It is also as updated as often as the two major items here: Chromium & Chrome web browsers.

It's so strange to me that Linux coders find the need to have Linux-only web browsers. Perhaps the Linux Mint coders are not aware of the full Linux environment. In terms of spyware, privacy & security, I find that the range of add-ons is far superior to the versions included in the above brand-name web browsers. The specialist add-on coders are better specialized with their products than the non-specialists.

[xAlt7x]

I'm using vaapi with snap maybe you should look better

Before writing my post I actually checked git tree . Last update was made for version 83
Now let's check actuall versions inside snap store

snap info chromium

channels:
latest/stable: 86.0.4240.111 2020-10-27 (1373) 252MB -
latest/candidate: 86.0.4240.111 2020-10-27 (1373) 252MB -
latest/beta: 87.0.4280.27 2020-10-23 (1366) 172MB -
latest/edge: 88.0.4292.2 2020-10-16 (1358) 173MB -

There's no VAAPI version.
Ok, let's try command from Internet history

sudo snap install --channel=candidate/vaapi chromium

Notice that it actually gets downloaded from stable channel
Still don't believe me?
Install h264ify extension, start some video and visit

chrome://media-internals/

You will probably find

kVideoDecoderName "FFmpegVideoDecoder"

instead of

kVideoDecoderName "MojoVideoDecoder"

[Danny3]

Considerin what you said: Why even build Chromium at all? Just using Chrome seems easier and just as spying.

As a backup browser for Firefox, at least this is what I use Ungoogled-Chromium for.
If you need the ultimate performance or some specific website to work, it's good to have also a Chromium based browser.