Solved Ungoogled Chromium

[Aardvarkly]

Is Ungoogled Chromium any good for Windows 7? I already have Chrome (with no updates) but just read that Ungoogled Chromium has benefits.

 

[michael diemer]

You might want to look at Supermium browser. It's based on Chrome. There is a thread on here about it. The website says they are working on an ungoogled version, but for now you would have to do the ungoogle-ing yourself. Personally, I think Firefox is best for now, until it is no longer supported, which I think might be October.

 

[YmodemYNot]

Is Ungoogled Chromium any good for Windows 7? I already have Chrome (with no updates) but just read that Ungoogled Chromium has benefits.

No Google components or tracking/telemetry so good for privacy once you install appropriate extensions.

- - - Updated - - -

You might want to look at Supermium browser. It's based on Chrome. There is a thread on here about it. Here's the link:

Supermium Web Browser

Supremium is a good choice because it has the option to install regular or un-Googled Chrome. You're better off downloading from the author's Github Repo.

Releases . win32ss/supermium . GitHub

 

[dg1261]

I switched to Ungoogled-Chromium about 3 yrs ago, and liked it better than Google Chrome. It felt like a cleaner user experience.

If you want to install any extensions, though, note you'll probably want to add the "Chromium Web Store" extension. This enables Ungoogled Chromium to install extensions from the Chrome Web Store just like you do with regular Google Chrome.

However, as much as I've liked it, it's now my second choice. I switched to Supermium about 6 mos ago, and am liking that better than either Ungoogled Chromium or regular Chrome.

Also, it's significant to note that Supermium is the only Chromium fork still maintaining compatibility with Win 7. In contrast to other Chromium forks available for Win7, Supermium appears to be based on Chrome 122 (as of this writing). Ungoogled-Chromium ceased Win7 support after Chrome 103. Google Chrome itself stopped at 109, Vivaldi stopped at 108, and Brave and Opera both dropped Win7 after Chrome 109. All current versions of those other browsers now require Win 8.1 or Win 10 (and seem poised to drop 8.1 any moment now).

Using Supermium on Win7, I also checked what User-Agent String the browser is sending websites. It’s telling websites you're running Chrome 122 on Windows 10, even though I was using Win7. That should help avoid some of the nags from websites that want to complain if they see you’re using Win7/8.x. It won’t stop them all, but it will fool the sites that merely check the User-Agent String.

There are portable versions of both Ungoogled Chromium and Supermium, so why don't you try them and see which suits you better? They are no-install versions, so you can put them in a temporary folder, test them out, and simply discard the folder later if you don't want it.

 

[Aardvarkly]

I think I will be trying Supermium. Thanks to all for the info.

Update:

I eventually managed to install it but there was no way to fire it up. Not showing in Control Panel and not listed in the Start menu. I eventually found it in C/Program files. The whole setup seems a bit sketchy to me and I want to uninstall it. How can I do this when it doesn't show up in the Control Panel, etc. with an uninstall option? Do I just delete what I find in C/Program files and hope for the best?

 

[michael diemer]

A method is listed here:

Supermium uninstallation in Windows 7 . Issue #467 . win32ss/supermium . GitHub.

You could also do a System Restore.

 

[Aardvarkly]

Thankyou Michael. That is helpful.

Update:
I think I have done it. After checking the link it seems my gut instinct to just wade into C/program files was correct.
No way to know for sure because the folder in C was the only sign of it anywhere.

 

[townsbg]

You'll have a profile in C:\Users\[User name]\AppData\Local\Supermium.

 

[YmodemYNot]

There's also Thorium which is based on Chromium 122:
Releases . Alex313031/thorium-legacy . GitHub

The install works better than Supremium but sadly there's no un-Googled version.

 

[silentbob88]

Am not sure about Thorium or Supremium but from my own research and these experts, DigDeeper along with his friend, Ninja with his 'Ninja's guide to the internet' that the only browsers that do not spy on you at all are Ungoogled Chromium and IceCat. Also to a certain extent PaleMoon which I don't use but that needs to be configured with a mitigation guide to classify it as not spyware.

I have come across many privacy and security guides over the years such as privacytools.io but they all tend to be corporatized and often end up recommending software that spies on you alot such as Brave and Firefox. DigDeeper & 'Ninja's guide to the Internet' are the only ones I have found that are independent & written by what I consider net security geniuses but they also explain in great depth their testing and reasons for using their recommendations. It should be noted that without knowing about them, their sites are incredibly hard to find via any search engine so I presume their traffic is tiny compared too other seemingly genuine guides like privacytools which even has it's own reddit!

As a inexperienced but qualified network engineer that had to drop out of the Cisco CCNA course I put my faith in these guys to help ensure my net privacy and security. Of course a excellent totally transparent VPN such as Mullvad helps alot too.
All other browsers including Thorium or Supremium should be considered spyware until proven otherwise, so don't trust them.

Some links:
Dig Deeper
How to choose a browser for everyday use?
Ninja's guide to the Internet
Ungoogled-Chromium — Spyware Watchdog
GNU IceCat — Spyware Watchdog
Pale Moon — Spyware Watchdog
Spyware Watchdog

I use and would recommend both IceCat and Ungoogled Chromium, and both with the uMatrix and uBlock extensions. IceCat also has by default additional security and privacy extensions which you can read about in one of the above links. uBlock can be left on default settings, as too uMatrix though I would turn off 'Collect Errors' for both. uMatrix takes a week or two to get used to but it is by far the best privacy and security add on out there. DigDeeper also mentions a number of other valuable extensions that I have been using and will be reinstalling on my new Windows 7 build.

See here:
Essential privacy (and other) addons

IceCat is a fork of Firefox with 100% spyware removed and is up to date as of December 2023. Ungoogled Chromium is a fork of Chromium with 100% spyware removed but the latest version that works with Win7 is 109 from March 25th 2023. As of 110 Chromium no longer supports Win7. There is a workaround but that removes sandboxing which is vital with today's threats and virtually browsers have this feature. Since IceCat is being kept upto date that might be better for use as a daily driver browser with Ungoogled Chromium as back up. You could try PaleMoon but it takes alot more effort to configure.

IceCat & PaleMoon are easy to find but I did spend a good hour or so trying to find the latest Ungoogled Chromium for Windows 7 yesterday as I had realised mine was out of date. Luckily I bookmarked them!
Download latest stable Chromium binaries (64-bit and 32-bit)
Release Chromium v109.0.5414.120-r1070088 - ungoogled . macchrome/winchrome . GitHub

From the above link you'll want the March 1st build, ungoogled-chromium-109.0.5414.131-1_windows.7z (64-bit).
As a side note I discovered recently that there are many vulnerabilities to Windows 7 now, see here -
https://www.opencve.io/cve?product=windows_7&vendor=microsoft
https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-26/product_id-17153/Microsoft-Windows-7.html

By coincidence when looking yesterday for that latest ungoogled chromium build I found Thorium had mentioned it's possible to receive MS Extended Security Updates (ESU) with a patch for Windows 7 bringing it upto date as of this month. I was going to ditch it for my Thinkpad in favour of 10 but might not now. The site is auto translated from the original German.
https://www-deskmodder-de.translate...tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

 

[michael diemer]

In my opinion, there really is no safe way to continue using Windows 7 as your daily driver. My approach is to use Linux for that. The Wine program will allow you to use quite a bit of windows programs. Office runs perfectly on it, although there are great Linux-based alternatives, which will open Office docs, spreadsheets, etc. I love Windows 7, but at this point I go online very sparingly with it. My primary use of it is for my music composition. That machine is offline by default. Once Firefox support ends, I will probably just keep it offline permanently, along with my other Windows 7 machines or drives. That way you are totally safe, and can enjoy it as an archive, play solitaire, etc.

Of course, you can bite the bullet and update (I won't use the word upgrade in this case) to windows 10. That I will not do. not when Linux does everything I need, other than my music. Actually, it can even do that, but I've tried it and it's just not worth it.

As time goes on, the chance of being seriously compromised by continuing to use an unsupported OS on an ongoing basis is just too great. You're on very thin ice there.