No more Flatpak (by default) in Ubuntu Flavors

Posted Feb 22, 2023 15:26 UTC (Wed) by pbryan (guest, #3438)
Parent article: No more Flatpak (by default) in Ubuntu Flavors

This seems to parallel a recent change by Microsoft to discourage the installation of Chrome to keep you using the Edge browser instead.

No more Flatpak (by default) in Ubuntu Flavors

Posted Feb 23, 2023 7:34 UTC (Thu) by WolfWings (subscriber, #56790) [Link] (8 responses)

Perhaps comically, I'm using Edge on two of my Linux machines instead of Chrome or Firefox.

Once you turn off the hyper-noisy default new-tab page it's actually quite good on tablets, especially with the sidebar + vertical tabs so most navigation and quick access is on the sides where you're already holding a tablet.

I still use Chrome on my desktops/laptops, but I've certainly found a niche where I prefer Edge even on Linux.

No more Flatpak (by default) in Ubuntu Flavors

Posted Feb 23, 2023 13:41 UTC (Thu) by pawel44 (guest, #162008) [Link] (6 responses)

Proprietary spyware on Linux. Great, but I think nobody asked.

No more Flatpak (by default) in Ubuntu Flavors

Posted Feb 23, 2023 21:58 UTC (Thu) by WolfWings (subscriber, #56790) [Link] (4 responses)

...and Chrome isn't? At least on Linux I can track and block anything it's doing that I don't approve on far more easily than on Windows.

A webkit-based browser is what >90% of the web is designed and tested on, for better or worse. And Chromium doesn't cut it for some sites that rely on the various 'magic sauce' components the binary browsers include.

No more Flatpak (by default) in Ubuntu Flavors

Posted Feb 24, 2023 10:03 UTC (Fri) by smcv (subscriber, #53363) [Link]

The Chromium family aren't really WebKit-based any more: they use Blink, which has diverged from its WebKit ancestor. The big web browser engine families are now Blink (Chromium, Chrome, CEF, Electron, Edge, etc.), WebKit (Apple Safari, GNOME Web, many embedded devices) and Gecko (Firefox).

No more Flatpak (by default) in Ubuntu Flavors

Posted Feb 28, 2023 20:25 UTC (Tue) by mrkernel (guest, #163905) [Link] (2 responses)

Name a single website that works in Chrome but not Chromium. Extensions or plugins don't count.

No more Flatpak (by default) in Ubuntu Flavors

Posted Mar 7, 2023 11:38 UTC (Tue) by calumapplepie (guest, #143655) [Link] (1 responses)

Anything requiring DRM will not work on Debian's Chromium package, but will on the Firefox package. That includes all the subscription streaming sites (Spotify, Netflix, etc, etc).

No more Flatpak (by default) in Ubuntu Flavors

Posted Apr 20, 2023 11:51 UTC (Thu) by Klavs (guest, #10563) [Link]

Netflix works just fine on chromium in Ubuntu.

No more Flatpak (by default) in Ubuntu Flavors

Posted Feb 25, 2023 6:12 UTC (Sat) by jmalcolm (subscriber, #8876) [Link]

I have been thankful for Edge on Linux actually. My main browser is Firefox on Linux ( typing in that now ) but I use Edge on Linux fairly often. For one thing, it plays much better with a different video conferencing apps I need to use.

Personally I consider Google and Chrome a bigger issue than Microsoft these days. Other may not think that moving from Google to Microsoft product is much of an improvement but I have not used Chrome in years and want to keep it that way.

It is the same engine. I get that. As I said, my main browser is Firefox. The main reason for that though is that I use older hardware ( lowish amounts of RAM ) and I am terrible with tabs ( God knows how many I have open ) and Firefox just does better with that.

No more Flatpak (by default) in Ubuntu Flavors

Posted Feb 28, 2023 18:09 UTC (Tue) by ScottMinster (subscriber, #67541) [Link]

The vertical tabs on Edge still aren't as good as Tree Style Tabs in Firefox. But I am glad that at least one other browser vendor is giving an option for vertical tabs.

No more Flatpak (by default) in Ubuntu Flavors

Posted Feb 23, 2023 11:23 UTC (Thu) by mgedmin (subscriber, #34497) [Link]

Recent change? A few years back I tried to install Chrome in a Windows VM, couldn't figure out how to get around Microsoft's roadblocks, and installed Firefox instead.

(These days I use Firefox by choice, rather than as a fallback.)