Differences between Chrome and Chromium in rendering websites

fox · April 20, 2020, 08:10:54 AM

Regarding why I have Chrome on my computer, it's there in case I want to watch Netflix on the computer. I thought you had to have Chrome for this, vs Chromium. I thought I heard that from you, Jason.

Admin: This post and the posts following were split off from a security post regarding an update for Chrome so that's why this post starts abruptly with no intro.

Jason · April 20, 2020, 10:27:28 AM

Quote from: fox on April 20, 2020, 08:10:54 AM
Regarding why I have Chrome on my computer, it's there in case I want to watch Netflix on the computer. I thought you had to have Chrome for this, vs Chromium. I thought I heard that from you, Jason.

I'm guessing you mean when I did a presentation on Arch way back. I mentioned that installing Chrome was easier (if you like Chrome or Chromium) than Chromium on Linux to get Netflix working (or any video side requiring Widevine). But there was a way to do it on Chromium, too. It just involved installing the Widevine plugin separately that comes automatically with Chrome. Is that what you mean?

I actually didn't know you had Netflix now. I'm assuming you must like it or you wouldn't keep it knowing how thrifty you are.

How long have you had it? I recall something about your daughter and you sharing it now.

fox · April 20, 2020, 10:30:55 AM

My daughter bought it originally; we share it. So I can now run Netflix on Firefox or Chromium?

Jason · April 20, 2020, 11:12:23 AM

Quote from: fox on April 20, 2020, 10:30:55 AM
My daughter bought it originally; we share it. So I can now run Netflix on Firefox or Chromium?

Why don't you just try it? But, yes, we've been able to run Netflix on Firefox on Linux for at least a couple of years. I've used it on Firefox and Chrome. Haven't tried on Chromium. But I suspect that if it doesn't work in Chromium, installing Chrome first and then removing it before installing Chromium will likely get it to work since the necessary plugin will now be present.

The problem was with the Widevine plugin that wasn't available for Linux except in Chrome which automatically installed it. There was a trick to get it working on FF in Linux but it involved WINE. I've never tried on Chromium in Linux but it should be installed, too. It's installed automatically, if available, the first time you use Netflix.

I don't know for Chromium, but on Windows, there was never an issue with Firefox or Chrome for running Netflix.

fox · April 20, 2020, 12:14:17 PM

Is there anything else that Chrome does for you that Chromium or Firefox don't?

Jason · April 20, 2020, 07:44:59 PM

Quote from: fox on April 20, 2020, 12:14:17 PM
Is there anything else that Chrome does for you that Chromium or Firefox don't?

I don't use Chrome. I have it as an extra browser in case some site functionality doesn't work or just to test if my browser has become unstable. But sometimes I just have Firefox as my extra browser. Right now, I have both in Linux and just Edge and Brave in Windows. My main browser in Linux is also Brave. Brave is based on Chromium code but additionally they've stripped away some Google code.

I used to use Chrome but it's been a long while. My browser before Brave was Firefox. I had switched from Chrome to Firefox because I wanted a browser that was (1) open source, entirely and (2) wasn't built by a profit-driven company who might not respect privacy as much as I do. I mainly switched to Brave from Firefox because of it's purported speed and the micro-payment system.

fox · April 21, 2020, 09:01:56 AM

Quote from: Jason Wallwork on April 20, 2020, 07:44:59 PM

I don't use Chrome. I have it as an extra browser in case some site functionality doesn't work ....

That's why I have it, too. I use Firefox as my regular browser. I also have Chromium because it's open source, but if it can't be used in case a site doesn't function properly in Firefox, it isn't much use to me.

Jason · April 21, 2020, 10:50:31 AM

Quote from: fox on April 21, 2020, 09:01:56 AM
That's why I have it, too. I use Firefox as my regular browser. I also have Chromium because it's open source, but if it can't be used in case a site doesn't function properly in Firefox, it isn't much use to me.

Why can't it be used if a site doesn't function properly in Firefox? The Netflix issue with Chromium doesn't affect other sites unless they also use digital rights management on their video.

fox · April 21, 2020, 11:32:04 AM

I don't know. After hearing that Netflix only worked natively in Chrome (which you tell me is no longer true), I assumed that Chrome, being proprietary, would make everything work whereas Chromium not necessarily so. I rarely use either; they're there just in case. But if Chromium is as useful as Chrome for making sites work that don't in Firefox, I would keep Chromium and uninstall Chrome.

Jason · April 21, 2020, 01:53:15 PM

Quote from: fox on April 21, 2020, 11:32:04 AM
I don't know. After hearing that Netflix only worked natively in Chrome (which you tell me is no longer true), I assumed that Chrome, being proprietary, would make everything work whereas Chromium not necessarily so. I rarely use either; they're there just in case. But if Chromium is as useful as Chrome for making sites work that don't in Firefox, I would keep Chromium and uninstall Chrome.

AFAIK, Chromium is fine with any site that doesn't depend on DRM, like Netflix. But having had Chrome installed, Chromium will likely have access to that plugin now so Netflix might just work on it, too. Chromium can handle the same open web standards that any other browser can. It doesn't include Flash but nobody uses Flash anymore, at least no sites that I know of. Maybe just some casual browser games that haven't updated to HTML5 which does everything that Flash could do now. Try it out for sites you're familiar with and see if it works for you. Let us know.

fox · April 21, 2020, 03:32:31 PM

Well the first thing I tried was to run Netflix on Chromium. Wouldn't work; needs Silverlight. I next tried to run it on Chrome. Didn't work until I disabled a blocker, but then it worked. I then tried to run it on Firefox, and it worked same as Chrome.

Jason · April 21, 2020, 08:14:54 PM

Quote from: fox on April 21, 2020, 03:32:31 PM
Well the first thing I tried was to run Netflix on Chromium. Wouldn't work; needs Silverlight. I next tried to run it on Chrome. Didn't work until I disabled a blocker, but then it worked. I then tried to run it on Firefox, and it worked same as Chrome.

Oh, that's too bad. But I thought you didn't use Chromium as an alternate because you didn't think it would work for most sites. Okay, just did a quick search and found this tutorial for installing widevine in Chromium for Linux. I remembered you could do it in Arch or Manjaro but you needed to install something else. Well, this is it. It's from February of last year so hopefully still works.

Here's an article about some other differences between Chromium and Chrome. Not sure how this got into a discussion about Chrome vs. Chromium when the topic was about the Brave Browser, so I'm going to split the topic into a new one.