02-25-2021, 07:54 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-05-2021, 08:38 AM by C0ffeeFreak.)
This will walk you through installing Chromium on Mobian and Arch Linux. Chromium won't run yet on Manjaro or Postmarket OS. I think after you make these tweaks and use Chromium you will see it has quite a few advantages over Firefox.
Positives: Faster, seems to be better optimized. Scales better. Works excellent with full window Web apps with desktop shortcuts. Pretty much as good as real apps. You can use a lot of extensions, my VPN has one and it works very well.
Negatives: Keyboard has to be manually throttled up and down through the keyboard icon in the bottom right corner. Some keys on the touch keyboard don't seem to work like capital C, and the @ symbol. No idea why. Work fine on the keyboard docked.
Here is a step by step walk through for installing and tweaking it.
It has to be installed through Flatpak, The Chromium apps in the Mobian and Arch software repository don't seem to work. I suspect it's a Wayland or X11 problem.
Add flatpak to Mobian from the terminal:
Close and restart your terminal.
Add flatpak to Arch from the terminal:
Close and restart your terminal.
Install Chromium:
It's very important that you do this before you do anything with the browser. If you don't your browser user agent will leak and if your service provider identifies your device that way it may blacklist you and deactivate your account! AT&T has been doing this. For what it's worth, Mobian Firefox ESR is the only browser with a working Android user agent right now out of the box. User agent extensions alone will leak through Java. All the other distros are leaking after recent browser updates.
After Chromium opens type chrome://flags in the address bar and hit enter. After it opens search for Freeze User-Agent request header and enable it then close the browser.
Open Chromium go to settings-more tools-extensions search for and install Use-Agent Switcher and Manager.
Open the extension and choose Chrome and Android in the drop down. Then select Chrome 87.0.4290.101 Android 10 and at the bottom left select Apply (all windows)
Close the browser and relaunch. Your browser should launch in mobile now. Do a leak test by searching What is my browser? look on several of the result sites that show up and look at your User Agent string. There should be no hint of Arch64 or desktop in any of them or it's leaking. Congratulations! Your now running Chromium Mobile.
On another note this will not work for Ungoogled Chromium. The settings and extensions were removed.
Positives: Faster, seems to be better optimized. Scales better. Works excellent with full window Web apps with desktop shortcuts. Pretty much as good as real apps. You can use a lot of extensions, my VPN has one and it works very well.
Negatives: Keyboard has to be manually throttled up and down through the keyboard icon in the bottom right corner. Some keys on the touch keyboard don't seem to work like capital C, and the @ symbol. No idea why. Work fine on the keyboard docked.
Here is a step by step walk through for installing and tweaking it.
It has to be installed through Flatpak, The Chromium apps in the Mobian and Arch software repository don't seem to work. I suspect it's a Wayland or X11 problem.
Add flatpak to Mobian from the terminal:
Code:
apt install gnome-software-plugin-flatpakCode:
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepoClose and restart your terminal.
Add flatpak to Arch from the terminal:
Code:
sudo pacman -S flatpakClose and restart your terminal.
Install Chromium:
Code:
flatpak install flathub org.chromium.ChromiumCode:
scale-to-fit Chromium onCode:
flatpak run org.chromium.ChromiumIt's very important that you do this before you do anything with the browser. If you don't your browser user agent will leak and if your service provider identifies your device that way it may blacklist you and deactivate your account! AT&T has been doing this. For what it's worth, Mobian Firefox ESR is the only browser with a working Android user agent right now out of the box. User agent extensions alone will leak through Java. All the other distros are leaking after recent browser updates.
After Chromium opens type chrome://flags in the address bar and hit enter. After it opens search for Freeze User-Agent request header and enable it then close the browser.
Open Chromium go to settings-more tools-extensions search for and install Use-Agent Switcher and Manager.
Open the extension and choose Chrome and Android in the drop down. Then select Chrome 87.0.4290.101 Android 10 and at the bottom left select Apply (all windows)
Close the browser and relaunch. Your browser should launch in mobile now. Do a leak test by searching What is my browser? look on several of the result sites that show up and look at your User Agent string. There should be no hint of Arch64 or desktop in any of them or it's leaking. Congratulations! Your now running Chromium Mobile.
On another note this will not work for Ungoogled Chromium. The settings and extensions were removed.