Yet another article on upcoming changes in Google Chrome and even more incentive to ditch it for Firefox.
Chrome is just a camouflaged surveillance engine, out to monetize our personal data. 
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Hi!
Did you remember the google motto in typic reverse way "Don't be evil!" changed in 2015 with same reverse path for "Do the right thing!" ?
Ih!
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There's a list of reasons of why Chrome is set the default (on the actual beta versions, every version is different, 2.0 had firefox and 3.0 had chromium if im not wrong), the actual reasons are:
- It is the most light option (in ram), this is the most important factor in Elive since browsers are the most bloated apps from all, and that Elive focuses in being light and fast
- It is the most fast (running, rendering, etc)
- It is the most compatible browser with every website on internet
- It is also very familiar to users, since is the most widely-used browser
- Supports needed features that Elive uses in some cases
About why Chrome and not Chromium in the beta versions, it is because chromium had some issues that were solved in chrome, so a switch from chromium to chrome was needed (it was chrome in the previous beta versions)
To pick a different default browser will be needed to "be better" in different aspects especially in performance & resources
Being realistic, the problem is that is impossible to make every user's happy giving them a default-selected browser, and seems like even "if they can remove it and install whateverbrowser they want" is not enough, Elive integrated months ago a feature on the installer on which the user is forced to select which browser wants to use, so in the end even if the browser is disliked it stills not a problem at all because there's no tracking in Live mode (not needed to run it, and no logins are made), and in the installed mode the user simply selects his prefered browser
I always say that Elive is more a distro than a Live mode, because its name makes this confusing, Live mode "is just a demo" of Elive (where a browser functionality is needed to have ready to use) and is the needed door to install the system on the computer, which doesn't stops to make the Live mode beautifully featured with things like the Persistence boot mode. Will be not good to see Elive USB to be a running (slow and not so friendly) debian-installer to have the final system installed, is better being everything at the same time, but that would be the solution for the browser preference, or not exactly... because debian-installer may provide a default browser, Elive simply asks the user which one wants to use
You complain all the time about Microsoft's spying on users and unethical business practices... when Google's entire business model is based on spying on users and unethical business practices. Yet you continually turn a blind eye to that kind of thing. I just don't get it.
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Again: the browser is the selection of the user, the Live mode is just a demostration of Elive and the door to the installation procedure, there's no browser enforcement into the user
Same here .... I'm blown away every time I hear those arguments.
They all come down to the same arguments I have heard for years in relation to M$ software i.e:
The system "just works" and has more features than Linux offers.
or generally: I'll gladly sell my soul, privacy and freedom for ease of use"
M$ has moved over and Google is now the new supreme usurper abusing each and every one it can bring into it's fold.
It's a crying shame that Elive actually actively helps doing this by having Chrome (and Google search) as default... especially with the above arguments (where most are blatantly untrue or debatable).
If an Elive user wants to be violated by Google than that's a personal choice ...... So Chrome and Google search should be "opt-in" and NOT the "opt-out" you call a choice.
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And what I don't understand is what part of the "the browser is user's choice, almost forced to pick a desired browser on install", the only option if you don't want to have default browser set in Live mode is to remove entirely the Live functionality and become a debian-installer like distro, no Live, just install (and if so, even debian enforces a default browser without asking to the user, which means that Elive does it better)
No, it doesn't.
I don't intend to repeat what I stated so I suggest you read and think it over again because what you just wrote is not correct.
Anyway, the 'default' pre-selected option (browser as well as search-engine in this case) should never be the one that can harm an unsuspecting adopter.
The fact that Google is harmful in many ways isn't something new.
but as mentioned, it doesn't do harm unless the user "continuously uses it", which means this is a thing for the installed system (if the user uses it, for a fast search on google during live mode, there's nothing tracked so there's not even a login to the user account, unless he cares about that of course), Live mode is just a working demo, and the door to the real Elive which is installed, where the user selects the browser he wants, no one is enforced
the main reason why chrome is selected for the live mode is because of the previously listed reasons, so to change the default selected one we require a better alternative in these aspects, elive always picks a best selection of software across the other alternatives based on multiple factors like usability, features, and lightness, but is always impossible to make everybody's happy, I know many people prefers firefox, but may prefer brave over firefox too, and so on...
On the other hand, talking about privacy, chromium is a good alternative replacement (equally good in resources as chrome, and other factors), in fact I always tried to use chromium as a preference over chrome because of these reasons, but as mentioned before I needed to switch in the last beta versions from chromium to chrome because of bugs on chromium, so if in the move to booksworm is found that it doesn't gives issues, it will be moved to that one. Now going deeply on the privacy topic, if chromium -really- track things sending information hiddenly, im pretty sure that debian already includes a patch to disable "such feature", if not, then should be probably considered a bug that they would fix, for example maybe this one: debian/patches/series · master · chromium / chromium · GitLab which points to ungoogled-chromium/patches/core/ungoogled-chromium/disable-privacy-sandbox.patch at master · ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium · GitHub , all those patches / modifications are for the debian version of chromium, chrome has none of them, shipping up as is default
...And now you're supporting Chrom*/Blink's monopoly.
I've tried Chromium a lot but it fails a lot in certain aspects. In general, if my wife is muttering at her laptop that things don't work as it should (she uses chromium) I just tell her to fire up FF and do it from there and .... usually it does work.
IMO Firefox has surpassed Chromium in usage and availale add-ons. Combined with the 'simple Elive theme', 'uBlock Origin add-on' and the 'new tab-suspender' would make a great default browser.
With the Elive theme making it even a tighter visual integration (and giving the creator some credit).
And another (Ebuzz) testimony to the big tech evil data collectors out there:
Personally, I installed Firefox. No problems here
I'm not on about personal preferences but on how this is a way for Elive to show that it cares for its new users/adopters in every way. With, on top a way to visually incorporate the browser into the distro through the theme.
I just read the whole thread from edge with still default search engine (bing) and thought "why am i so stupidly lazy to have not switched yet"
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Speaking of which, since i'm still a lazy person, i directly switched to duckduckgo browser. But question is, what is it built upon? It's extremely straightforward and sleek (which i appreciate), but it gets detected as microsoft edge 
From what I've seen (on Android) it looks to be Firefox(mozilla) based but I'm not sure of Linux.
I suppose the 'help' and 'about' menu should clarify what it's built on.
I just use FF and have "startpage" (or DDG if you want) as the default search engine.
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Edge Web View... my bad. But techinically my fault, for using Microsoft on this specific machine. Stupid adobe not building their apps for open source OSes forces me on this choice sometimes.
I'd love so much to get rid of Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop but at the same time they're so much on another planet compared to alternatives...
Sorry for the off topic btw.
