Proposed: Chromium as Ubuntu's default browser

[vasa1]

Chromium as default browser

Chromium has matured to being as good or better than Firefox. It will be the foundation of a lot of Ubuntu Touch code and webapps code. We should consider using Chromium as the default browser in Ubuntu.

So why is Chromium (by Canonical/Ubuntu/Community) still at version 25? I think Canonical's Firefox team is more "on time" in terms of providing a current browser to its users.

[monkeybrain2012]

Based on what does he say that chromium is as good or better than Firefox? It is quite useless IMO, it is outdated, it doesn't have the rich addon ecology of FF, and multimedia plugins barely works in it (gecko-mediaplayer mainly) One great selling point for Chrome is pepper flash but chromium doesn't have it. If it becomes the default I hope I can easily remove it without removing the whole desktop (not like konqueror or whatever it is called now in KDE distros), which is exactly what I do whenever I install lubuntu (and install Firefox and Chrome afterwords)

Besides, instead of a full blown first class open source browser like Firefox why would he want a crippled version of Chrome (that is what Chromium basically is) as the default on the flagship Linux distro?

[cflow]

From what I know, this is a blueprint - and I think most people registered on launchpad can file them. Whether this one will become accepted or not is still very questionable as news right now. As an example, for Fedora 19, a developer proposed Cinnamon to be the default desktop environment, and was interpreted by some sites as news - but that switch probably won't happen.

[craig10x]

Chrome would be a much better default then chromium...it has the latest version of flash thanks to it's pepper flash plug in arrangement with adobe (which Chromium does not) and excellent built in pdf reader (in the browser) and even adds a ppa for automatic updates....plus it is always ahead of chromium in latest versions...I guess there is the license aspect of it that would prevent ubuntu from using it...a real shame...

I think firefox is a fine browser but i always install Chrome...Chrome has become so popular that it's offered as a 2nd browser on many windows laptops and desktops these days...My toshiba had it added on the windows 7 install i originally had on my laptop...It's actually more popular then internet explorer these days...

[vasa1]

From what I know, this is a blueprint - and I think most people registered on launchpad can file them. Whether this one will become accepted or not is still very questionable as news right now. As an example, for Fedora 19, a developer proposed Cinnamon to be the default desktop environment, and was interpreted by some sites as news - but that switch probably won't happen.

"Proposed" is in the title. The link clearly includes "blueprint". I posted in the Chat section. So what's your point?

[monkeybrain2012]

Other than flash (and html5) almost no other media content plays in Chrome under Linux Simple example. Try to access this with chrome.http://www.ciut.fm/listen-now/

I can play both the mac and windows links on Firefox with gecko-mediaplayer but gm would not even load in Chrome (tried different versions of gm and chrome and on different machines and different versions of Ubuntu, it doesn't work on Chrome with Ubuntu since 11.04 and gm version 1.04 or something, and it doesn't not work with Chrome in Fedora 18, the only place where it works, strangely is Debian sid) Totem plugin can play some contents on a good day but very limited comparing to gecko-mediaplayer.

Firefox plays both flash and html5 as well as Chrome except for very few sites that require pepper or html5 sites that require h264, but they are rare and there are workarounds for popular ones like vimeo.

I can easily handle 100+ tabs on FF on my not so cutting edge laptop, Chrome chokes for memory with about 20. Speedwise there is very little difference except Chrome is a little faster on startup (maybe because of the 100+ tabs in Firefox)

I think Firefox is still overall the best browser on Linux, aside from the fact that Chrome can never be the default because it is non free.

[vasa1]

Chrome would be a much better default then chromium...it has the latest version of flash thanks to it's pepper flash plug in arrangement with adobe (which Chromium does not) and excellent built in pdf reader (in the browser) and even adds a ppa for automatic updates....plus it is always ahead of chromium in latest versions...I guess there is the license aspect of it that would prevent ubuntu from using it...a real shame...

I think firefox is a fine browser but i always install Chrome...Chrome has become so popular that it's offered as a 2nd browser on many windows laptops and desktops these days...My toshiba had it added on the windows 7 install i originally had on my laptop...It's actually more popular then internet explorer these days...

I use both Chrome and Firefox. Because of that dependency issue, I'm still waiting on Chrome 27. I was hoping it would be released during I/O 2013 but that doesn't seem to be the case. So, if my math is correct v26 >>> v27 will have taken much more than ~ six weeks

[cflow]

"Proposed" is in the title. The link clearly includes "blueprint". I posted in the Chat section. So what's your point?

Well... I think the title of the thread could still be kind of decieving and prone to causing another browser war: Some might interpret this as Ubuntu as a whole giving full thought about the proposal to switch web browsers, and get everyone complaining about which web browser should rule the universe. The power of one blueprint, and the media exposing it... just like the fedora example I explained. I guess I wanted to prevent a wildfire here .

[deadflowr]

Maybe they should show it can handle timely updates first.

[monkeybrain2012]

..Chrome has become so popular that it's offered as a 2nd browser on many windows laptops and desktops these days...My toshiba had it added on the windows 7 install i originally had on my laptop...It's actually more popular then internet explorer these days...

Yes, on Windows may be, but the only advantage of Chrome over FF on Linux is flash and that's just about it.