I'm thinking maybe I'll switch in a year or two. I know about Libre Office and VLC.

  • sovietknuckles [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    VSCodium is a variant with Microsoft stuff pulled out, akin to how Chromium is a variant of Chrome with (most) Google stuff pulled out.

    A variant with even more Google stuff pulled out is Ungoogled Chromum , though it still has a Chrome user agent and therefore still helps Google with browser market share metrics. The only major browser that you don't help Google by using is Firefox.

    • blobjim [he/him]
      ·
      11 months ago

      "Chromium" itself is just the name of the open source project (controlled and developed by Google of course) that Google Chrome is I guess a "branded" version of. There is a Chromium download, but it looks like it's of an unstable version and exists for testing purposes. I think people just get Chromium and Ungoogled Chromium mixed up.

      • sovietknuckles [they/them]
        ·
        11 months ago

        There is a Chromium download, but it looks like it's of an unstable version and exists for testing purposes.

        Most Linux users who use Chromium use a stable, tagged version (see Arch Linux, Ubuntu, etc.).

        "Chromium" itself is just the name of the open source project (controlled and developed by Google of course) that Google Chrome is I guess a "branded" version of.

        There are some differences between Chrome and Chromium besides just branding. For example, most Chromium builds will use open audio and video codecs instead of proprietary ones like H.264. Chromium also does not report crashes, and they claim it never reports user metrics (though Chromium does still send a ton of data to Google from Chromium. For example, "Improve search suggestions" is enabled by default, "Make searches and browsing better" can be enabled optionally, and any "smart"/predictive/adaptive features send data to Google).

        From the Chromium source tree, see: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/6e4b151958ca/docs/chromium_browser_vs_google_chrome.md

        • blobjim [he/him]
          ·
          11 months ago

          That's good to know, I didn't know most Linux distros also had their own builds.