How can I get proper Chromium back?

[The Cog]

19.10 seems to have a snap chromium rather than the proper one. I can go and make a cuppa while it's starting, and it's lost all my stored passwords.
Is there any way to get the proper chromium browser back again?

[PaulW2U]

No, the move to a snap is permanent and will eventually extend to all supported releases.
See: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/call-...ansition/11179

The password problem has been fixed in focal but not yet in eoan: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...r/+bug/1849160

That bug report recommends running the following command

snap connect chromium:password-manager-service

Does it work for you after restarting Chromium?

[The Cog]

Does it work for you after restarting Chromium?

I tried it, and I think it may have done.
Not that it matters - I'm going to start using Firefox instead.
I'll take chromium-browser out of my ansible playbok.

Thanks for the info and links - I wasn't aware of that going on.

[mörgæs]

I noticed that you are using Xubuntu. Is snap-Chromium also the 'mandatory option' there or is it only for Ubuntu?

[The Cog]

Well, I guess that since I asked for "chromium-browser" to be installed and I ended up with the snap version, I assume that only the snap version is available. "apt search chromium browser" doesn't seem to offer a choice.

On the plus side, Firefox feels faster than I remember and it feels like a bit of a homecoming.

[PaulW2U]

The deb package 'chromium-browser' is a transitional package in 19.04 which installs snapd, if not already installed, the chromium snap and any other snaps that Chromium needs in order to function. It should also copy settings over from the deb version but there are a number of outstanding bugs.

The change affects all flavours of Ubuntu, starting with the eoan release, as there is only one 'chromium-browser' package.

[mörgæs]

Thanks both for answers.
Sounds like Firefox will soon gain popularity...

[cruzer001]

How sad this is. Canonical learned nothing from the Unity disaster. We are here using Linux because we value our choice.

[uRock]

Thanks both for answers.
Sounds like Firefox will soon gain popularity...

I just stopped using Firefox. It eats too much RAM and it's cache seems to grow to 1GB when I run Bleachbit every other day. I'm back to Chrome. I just have to get over the fact Facebook sees everything I do.

How sad this is. Canonical learned nothing from the Unity disaster. We are here using Linux because we value our choice.

I was saddened when I went to VLC's site and saw they are now packaging as a snap.

[TheFu]

Perhaps there will be a flatpak with fewer constraints than the Ubuntu snaps, which break 50+ workflows by default?
Or hopefully, someone will create a PPA with chromium builds from the git repo?
We can hope.

I have a few years to decide still, but if Canonical continues to force snaps, I'll be looking at alternative distros. Looks like Debian isn't forcing it. There's a warning about running a Franken-Ubuntu by using different distro packages.