The New Browser Wars: Will Ubuntu drop Firefox for Google Chrome? | Hacker News Reader

The New Browser Wars: Will Ubuntu drop Firefox for Google Chrome?

crunchgear.com

11 pointsjfi13 comments

How about no default browser? Offer a browser selection screen during the install process or on first login. Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Opera, etc. Offering a level playing field for browsers is very important. I don't see any good reason Ubuntu has to dictate a default at this point.

I suppose everybody here knows the ins and outs of the browser landscape and has their own favorite. Most everybody else doesn't care about browsers and would find a selection screen annoying. Ubuntu has worked hard at reducing the effort to install an operating system, and such a screen goes against their philosophy. It's important to have sensible defaults.

Hm... did anyone notice how this is a repost of a post on ubergizmo which starts with:

"We have word that Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10 might not feature Firefox as the browser of choice, ..."

From the default install, maybe. Why does every misleading article forget to add that. Canonical does not remove anything, you can always install it back from the repos.

Sounds like these articles are just looking for controversy.

I'd love it if they did. I've basically stopped using Firefox in recent times. I currently use Chromium though, not Chrome. Chromium is so much faster than Firefox, and the UI takes up quite a bit less vertical space.

Why chromium over chrome? Even chrome dev channel?

Google already has access to all of my emails, my calendar, and several documents. I figure I might use a less Google-controlled browser than Chrome. Hence Chromium.

Granted, I have no idea what info Google has access to in Chrome that it doesn't have in Chromium.

iirc, SRWare Iron (http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php) is a Chromium-based browser with an eye for privacy. Might be worth a look if that's your main motivation in browser choice?

I'd be happy if Canonical actually managed to ship a browser with great font rendering out of the box. Oh, and a 64-bit build would be the icing on the cake.

Does Ubuntu even have Chrome/Chromium in the package manager yet?

It's not in the official repositories, but that's probably a good thing considering the frequency of updates during the beta period.

The Chrome beta .deb packages add the Chrome repo to your sources list, so updates are handled through the package manager (no unprompted background updating like in Mac/Windows).

I wonder if there will be any issues including it in the repos because of the integration of the Flash plugin. Then again, for a Linux company, Canonical is pretty willing to use proprietary software where practical.

It is since lucid.

http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/chromium-browser

You can also add the Chromium PPA for daily build updates:

https://launchpad.net/~chromium-daily/+archive/ppa

And as mentioned, installing Chrome will auto-install the Google repo for it as well.

http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?platform=linux

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