Q4OS Forum

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,560

Chromium browser as default

https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=5763

We love all, newcomers as well as experienced users. We believe Chromium is more familiar and suits better for most of new Linux users. At the same time we believe experienced user's preferences about web browsers are more diversified, so they are able to choose another one and install it more readily than a novice. Another reason is that Debian repositories host Firefox ESR, but not Firefox release. And the last is our own preference, we consider Chromium more robust and backed up by community than Firefox. But we admit it could be very debatable.

I was intrigued by this.
Now, I have in the past found Chromium to be a bit of a pain in many ways. The principle gripe was always around font handling, mushy non-matching fonts in the address bar a major PITA as well as odd looking font handling in some web pages.
Moving on a number of years I thought it only fair to give this ringing endorsement a spin around the block.
Honestly, I find myself quite impressed, and that's with a googleplex of years using Firefox ESR.
Things I still dislike, but am getting used to:-
Lack of separate search box and extensions that do offer it are a bit meh! BUT I can get over that.
Engineering things so that u-block origin no longer works.........well that's another argument. ABP in its current form does not impress and is nowhere near as customisable. BUT that's nothing to do with Q4OS.
Font handling on some sites is still a little off, and some - especially forum sites - do look a bit squnched but that could be down to code - though FF gets it right.
Scrollbar width - I can change in FF, in Chromium it's auto, thin  or none. Auto is out of the box.This shows a complete disregard for people's visual acuity and is annoying. OK you can change the colour.
Open link in new tab!!! I can imagine that some developer somewhere imagined that people would use that and then not want to look at that tab immediately, but I think the majority would - I know I do. OK there's an extension for that too..........

However, it is better than it used to be. I have been finding more and more sites where FF is stumbling a bit. It is definitely faster than FF.
With a bit of fiddling, system style bars and borders and GTK style I am almost starting to like it.
I think I may experiment with hBlock https://github.com/hectorm/hblock to offset the adblock limitation, but will definitely keep using it as my main browser.

@Q4OS Team - your faith is justified (IMVHO)

Last edited by bin (2025-11-07 07:55)

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 6,109

Website

Re: Chromium browser as default

Thanks for this constructive basis for discussion We'll go through the points and compare some of them with Firefox and discuss them in more detail a bit later. First of all the font rendering.

.. Engineering things so that u-block origin no longer works...

This is one point we agree with immediately and completely. It's a real shame what Chromium has done with extensions, namely blocking the uBlock. We still hope they will improve that over time.

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,560

Re: Chromium browser as default

Thank you. The font thing is certainly much improved over recent years for sure. Then you do get oddities such the attached.
Obviously that's the Debian forum. Now, what I don't know is whether the topic compression is simply down to ode on the site, or whether it is just due to a different rendering engine in Chromium.
I'm not sure whether the Chromium interface honours the system font settings or not. For example, my system default font is Ubuntu 10. Chromium's hamburger menu recognises that but I think it is applying a different aliasing in - for example - the tab text. I do find that Noto seems more grainy in Chromium too.
This is of course on a 1366x768 13 year old laptop - probably is not even visible on decent bit of kit

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Attachments:
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Midas

Member

Registered: 2017-12-15

Posts: 263

Re: Chromium browser as default

It's a real shame what Chromium has done with extensions, namely blocking the uBlock.

Thanks, but no, thanks...

It's not like I need another internet juggernaut in my life to tie my hands behind my back.

Oh, BTW, in Windowshpere, Google totally wrecked portability -- i.e., not needing to install everywhere and being able to run it off portable drives -- years ago.

Want a customized browser with your passwords and extensions you can carry around in a USB pendrive?

No can do (unless you tie yourself into an online account and sync every time)... Contrary to Firefox.

its many shortcomings not withstanding, I'll stick with the latter (and ESR, precisely).

I, for one, don't need all my Net eggs in one basket...

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 6,109

Website

Re: Chromium browser as default

.. Google totally wrecked portability -- i.e., not needing to install everywhere and being able to run it off portable drives -- years ago. ... Want a customized browser with your passwords and extensions you can carry around in a USB pendrive? ... No can do (unless you tie yourself into an online account and sync every time)... Contrary to Firefox.

Yes, Chromium may have this shortcoming although we are not able to confirm that at the moment. Nonetheless it isn't direct reason not to make it the default on standard harddrive installations. In anyway, if you are using Q4OS you can create your own profile featuring Firefox ESR or Firefox release and use it anytime upon a new installation.