19 votes

Google to pull API keys from unofficial builds of Chromium, including those for Linux packages

2 comments

  1. DMBuce
    Link
    News draft from the arch-dev-public mailing list (includes a link to the Fedora chromium package maintainer's take):

    News draft from the arch-dev-public mailing list (includes a link to the Fedora chromium package maintainer's take):

    Google has announced that they are going to block everything but Chrome from accessing
    Google features (like Chrome sync) starting on March 15. This decision
    by Google is going to affect Arch's chromium package a bit earlier,
    on March 2, when Chromium 89 gets released.

    We know for sure that data syncing will stop working (passwords,
    bookmarks, etc.). Other features such as geolocation or enhanced
    spell check
    might continue to function for a bit longer. Extensions
    integrating with Google Drive are likely to be affected as well.

    After this change is implemented, we will be able to better evaluate
    the usefulness of Chromium builds with reduced functionality. It is
    not yet clear if Chromium will continue to be a viable browser for us
    to package, but we are trying to minimize the disruption to users.

    Other distros such as openSUSE and Fedora have already removed the
    soon-to-be-limited API keys from their Chromium 88 packages. Fedora's
    advisory provides a great deal of perspective on this and I also found this
    Hackaday post to be quite informative.

    5 votes
  2. Pistos
    Link
    Well, I hope Linux distro package maintainers continue to provide Chromium. I don't use any of those phone-home features, so I wouldn't miss a thing. In fact, I'd welcome the slightly extra...

    Well, I hope Linux distro package maintainers continue to provide Chromium. I don't use any of those phone-home features, so I wouldn't miss a thing. In fact, I'd welcome the slightly extra assurance that those features were missing from my build. However, I do understand that some people want these things, and how small a minority people like me are is going to affect distro maintaners' decision.

    5 votes