Formed in 2009, the Archive Team (not to be confused with the archive.org Archive-It Team) is a rogue archivist collective dedicated to saving copies of rapidly dying or deleted websites for the sake of history and digital heritage. The group is 100% composed of volunteers and interested parties, and has expanded into a large amount of related projects for saving online and digital history.
Users of Chromium web browser are about to lose access to several key features, including bookmark and password sync.
Google has announced it is cutting off access to a number of APIs included in Chromium from March 15, 2021, including the following features:
- Google account sync
- Geolocation
- Click to call
- Chrome spelling API
- Contacts API
- Chrome translate element
- Safe browsing
Why?
Well, Google explains that API access too these were not supposed to be available outside of Google Chrome. Their inclusion “…meant that a small fraction of users could sign into their Google Account and store their personal Chrome sync data, such as bookmarks, not just with Google Chrome, but also with some third-party Chromium based browsers,” they say.
The majority of these APIs have been available to Linux distros maintaining Chromium packages for well over seven years. Quite why Google has only just “noticed” and dubbed them a security issue is …Well, ask them!
Chromium API Removal Affects Everyone
The most important thing to know about the impending axing of these API keys is that it will affect everyone who currently uses Chromium.
All Linux distributions are affected irrespective of how they choose to package Chromium. On Ubuntu the ‘pure’ Chromium package is a Snap app (even if you install it with apt) maintained by Canonical, whilst Linux Mint and Pop!_OS maintain traditional repo versions from a different source.
The more people who hear about this change before it happens, the better
Some Chromium package maintainers on Linux have already disabled the APIs ahead of the cut off date.
But all version of Chromium will be affected from March 15, even on older builds where the API keys are still present.
How Chromium users react to the decision? Probably with confusion. Those who don’t hear about it before the cut-off date will likely be left confused, and may assume something has broken in their config or within their Linux distribution’s packaging.
So the more people who hear about this change before it happens — and know why it’s happening — the better.
If you use Chromium for Linux it’s important to know that your sync data will not be deleted but will only be available locally. Any data you have synced from Chromium to your Google account will remain available through My Google Activity page and Google Takeout, as well as from the Google Chrome.
Firefox: First-Class Chromium Alternative
Google would like users of open-source Chromium builds to switch to fully-fledged Google Chrome. This ensures all of the Google-based features folks are familiar with remain accessible. And since it’s easy to install Chrome on Ubuntu (and most major distros) this isn’t a difficult solution, either.
But Google Chrome is not open source. That will be a decider for many. So what’s the best open-source alternative to Chromium? Mozilla Firefox.
Firefox is preinstalled on most Linux distros (and available from the repos where it doesn’t) and it has built-in sync features that are every bit as good as Google Chrome’s. And since Firefox can import passwords, bookmarks, cookies, and history from Chromium a switch needn’t be much hassle.