Google Chrome soon to replace Firefox in Ubuntu Linux | Hacker News Reader

Google Chrome soon to replace Firefox in Ubuntu Linux

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67 pointsgirishmony29 comments

This is totally misleading. All Mark said is that it's possible that Chrome would replace Firefox if the community decides that, but even then it wouldn't happen until 12.10 (more than a year away) at the earliest.

This is no different from the discussions that happen at every single UDS to review the default applications. (Last UDS we also discussed changing from Evolution to Thunderbird and the possibility of dropping LibreOffice from the CD entirely. The Evolution/Thunderbird change is far more likely to happen this cycle than the Firefox/Chrome one, and even it is iffy right now.)

It's irresponsible to characterize this as a done deal when it's emphatically not. And "soon" is certainly relative here anyway -- it's at least three releases away before this would even be considered.

The original article it links to is far more useful. It not only covers other matters, it is far more nuanced on the topic picked up here:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/061311-mark-shuttlewor...

The headline would be more accurate as "Google Chrome might replace Firefox in Ubuntu Linux, but not for at least a year"

Key quote: "That probably keeps us on Firefox for another year, at least, and we'll see from there," Shuttleworth said.

I hope I have covered it more clearly in the article. May be I should look after the headline though.

Also the original article covers Ubuntu in more detail, which is out of scope for this blog.

Thanks for the pointer!

About 18 months ago, Tom Callaway, Fedora engineering manager explained why fedora wasn't officially packaging chromium for fedora:

http://spot.livejournal.com/312320.html

I'd be interested to know what of those problems still apply. I imagine there are a number as we still don't see chromium in a major distro AFAIK.

Really? There's an official Ubuntu Chromium package. Its not installed by default, but its available in the repositories.

The linked blog post even talks about Ubuntu having it. GP just missed that part.

Chromium is in Fedora 15 and Debian.

I just did a search under F15 - no official chromium package that I can see. Do you mean Callaway's unofficial repo or am I missing something? Otherwise, all I can see packaged is a game that happens to share the same name (chromium-bsu-0.9.15-1.fc15).

No, I'm wrong. I have a friend who uses F15 and who I saw using Chromium. But it apparently was installed manually.

I really don't see this happening "soon" as the article puts it.

It won't be in 11.10. Almost certainly they won't put it in 12.04 as it's a LTS release. So the earliest would be 12.10 (Oct 2012).

I also doubt it is Chrome and not Chromium.

>> Almost certainly they won't put it in 12.04 as it's a LTS release

LOL

Chromium or Google Chrome?

It's Google Chrome.

It's hard to believe he really means Chrome and not Chromium, would Canonical really go with a closed source build of the browser in a default install? Don't they have a non-free process where the user has to explicitly authorize any installs that weren't built by the Ubuntu team?

Is it really that different than the copyright issues with the name/logos that Firefox has? My guess is that it would come down to obtaining an agreement with Google similar to the one Canonical made with Mozilla.

Besides that, yeah, the headline is more misleading than anything.

I think it is very different than the issue with the Firefox branding. See the differences between Chrome and Chromium:

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/ChromiumBrowserVsGoog...

Yes they do. It won't be Google Chrome in Ubuntu. It will probably remain Firefox.

if that happens, I'm going to debian/arch/whatever.I dont want a system with a browser which is comparable to zuckerberg concerning privacy.

I might be wrong here, but isn't the open source Chromium software shipped without Google branding and integration? As in, it doesn't contain the stuff which concerns your privacy.

Installing a new browser and setting it as the default browser is pretty trivial in Ubuntu (not so much in other distros), so if they change the default browser, it's hardly a reason to change distros.

You're right. Ubuntu's repos only have Chromium, which (IIRC) has things like Instant Search disabled.

You'd have to add Google's repo to download Chrome, but why would a Linux distro make a closed source browser their default?

Meta: how does a comment giving personal opinion get downvoted when that comment stimulates at least 8 responses which are not downvoted. It added to the conversation, despite disagreeing with the sentiment = upvote.

IMO even if they are factually incorrect it gives opportunity to correct the opinion that Chrome spies on its users.

When posters make incorrect statements because they are misinformed, they aren't downvoted. When posters make incorrect statements because they want other people to become misinformed, those are usually downvoted.

Because it's so hard to just remove it and install your own. No OS I use comes by default with my browser of choice as of late( actually I think Archbang does come with Chromium preinstalled ). Comments like this are ridiculous

I think the concern is more about supporting an OS that packages something you disagree with on principle.

Is there an issue with privacy concerns in Chromium? I thought the concern was just RLZ?

Depends on whether Ubuntu ships with Chrome or Chromium.

Ubuntu is the wrong choice to begin with if this is the case. Privacy is a non-issue with Chromium and it's offensive that people still shout this FUD about Google Chrome. Wouldn't you know, it's exceedingly rare that I ever hear any actual complaints about the "excessive privacy problems" with Chrome.

exactly. I know its not hard, its just two commands. But I just cant trust a os whos browser I cant trust.

That applies somehow to windows. I think ie is bad, so is windows.

maybe we should all switch to ONE browser, which has preferences like "browser-flavor":["google","microsoft","mozilla"]...

Yeah you are right. Privacy remains a concern. If that happens, we will compromise privacy for quality. I like Google Chrome but still privacy remains an issue for me.

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