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Chrome For Android Is Now Almost Entirely Open Source

Posted by Soulskill on from the strong-work dept.

jones_supa writes: After lots of work by Chrome for Android team and a huge change, Chrome for Android is now almost entirely open source, a Google engineer announced in Reddit. Over 100,000 lines of code, including Chrome's entire user interface layer, has been made public, allowing anyone with the inclination to do so to look at, modify, and build the browser from source. Licensing restrictions prevent certain media codecs, plugins and Google service features form being included, hence the "almost." This is on par with the open source Chromium browser that is available on the desktop.

51 comments

  1. "allowing anyone with the inclination to do so" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What if I don't want to?

    1. Re:"allowing anyone with the inclination to do so" by allquixotic · · Score: 1

      Then don't.

    2. Re:"allowing anyone with the inclination to do so" by kthreadd · · Score: 1

      What if I don't want to?

      It's a suboptimal choice of words. You're still allowed even if you don't want it.

  2. Almost? by aglider · · Score: 0

    It means it's closed source!

    --
    Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
    1. Re:Almost? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Come on! You don't have to give them an A for the effort, but they've earned their B+.

    2. Re:Almost? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a Pass/Fail course

    3. Re:Almost? by blueshift_1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Agreed. There is naturally still a place for proprietary software in today's business. However, it's good to see companies making their black boxes a bit smaller.

    4. Re:Almost? by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

      It means it's closed source!

      Missing codecs: AAC, H.264, MP3
      Missing plug-in: flash

      So either patents or not their code, if you got a good solution for that I'm sure Google would like to hear it.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    5. Re:Almost? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not havnig those pieces of code make it a nice, quiet browser. That I`d consider a feature.

    6. Re:Almost? by sexconker · · Score: 1

      It means it's closed source!

      Missing codecs: AAC, H.264, MP3
      Missing plug-in: flash

      So either patents or not their code, if you got a good solution for that I'm sure Google would like to hear it.

      Exclude that shit, and Google's other "service features" shit.
      Allow users to install those as plugins if they wish.

      TADA!!!!!!!

    7. Re:Almost? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Missing plug-in: flash

      Chrome for Android has never supported Flash. The old Android browser did.

    8. Re:Almost? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, this is quite legitimately a Pass/Fail thing, and they Fail.

    9. Re:Almost? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Chrome for Android has never supported Flash.

      As an Apple fanboy, does it mean I am allowed to ridicule Chrome for Android?

      P.S.: I hated Flash way before Steve Jobs, so he was the one to copy me.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    10. Re:Almost? by afgam28 · · Score: 1

      They did "exclude that shit". That's what chromium is.

    11. Re:Almost? by ron_ivi · · Score: 1

      Then market that as the primary product, and give a goofy name to the "chromium-plus-adobe-backdoors-plus-patents" product.

    12. Re:Almost? by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      The market decides what the primary product is. 99% of us want the adobe backdoors and patents and don't want to be forced to work for them.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    13. Re:Almost? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay, shit on them then! Releasing all the the other code means absolutely nothing! :P

      Hopefully, what you said was sarcastic...

    14. Re:Almost? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      So basically all the crappy bits you don't want on mobile anyway are missing. What a shame.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    15. Re:Almost? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Yeah I too have always wanted a browser that makes me go and install endless additional shit every time I open up a new website.

    16. Re:Almost? by aglider · · Score: 1

      chromium != chrome

      --
      Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
    17. Re:Almost? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As the Google engineer says, those are not Googles and they come in Android AOSP mediaplayer that has the codecs by the OEM from the SoC manufacturer (that pays those codecs).

      So everything works but Google can't open that it doesn't own.

    18. Re:Almost? by greenfruitsalad · · Score: 1

      it's like saying "i was almost entirely faithful to you darling"

  3. Only luddites use Chrome. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Modern app appers use Apps to app apps on apps while apping apps!

    Apps!

  4. Almost open source you say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It must work almost as well as their fiber:

    http://arstechnica.com/informa...

  5. Extensions by Ultra64 · · Score: 2

    Does this mean someone will enable extension support?

    1. Re:Extensions by PvtVoid · · Score: 1

      Check your "Tools" menu. It's the item called "Extensions".

      Oh, right, Android. Please downmod me to oblivion.

  6. Why should I be excited? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Chrome is built off of Chromium, which is already open-source - minus Google's additions, which probably happen to be what they are leaving out. Why wouldn't I just get Chromium, which has been open-source since its inception?

    1. Re:Why should I be excited? by phoenix_rizzen · · Score: 2

      Because Chromium isn't in the Google Play Store, so you can't "just get" it?

      There's an unofficial, test, "use at your own risk", "untested" APK that one can download from the Chromium website and side-load onto their Android device. But that's a lot more difficult than just installing it via Play Store.

  7. F-droid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Can we expect the Chromium browser in F-droid now?
    That would be fantastic!

    1. Re:F-droid? by Dr.Dubious+DDQ · · Score: 1

      Fennec FDroid seems to work fine for me, I'm not sure what I would get from Chromium Android that I don't already get from this. (Not saying chromium shouldn't be included too, if it's feasible, just not sure it'd be any better than what's already available).

      --
      Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
  8. FORK MOTHERFUCKERS FORK! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FORK or be a NORK!

    Oh Wait! ALMOST? Like Almost Pregnant? Wool, Pull-over!

  9. So can we get a fork that doesn't track all your by urbster1 · · Score: 0

    browsing activity? Or am I gonna be forced to use Firefox forever? No I don't want Google to know every website I visit!

  10. 3rd party cookies by bunglebungle · · Score: 1

    Can someone finally put the setting to disallow third-party cookies back?

  11. Fork with extensions support by allquixotic · · Score: 2

    I think the mainline Chrome for Android will never support extensions because they want to avoid opening up the "Pandora's Box" that will eventually lead to one of the popular adblockers showing up for Chrome on Android. And since they have such a huge installed base of phones running Chrome, there is a huge financial incentive for them to disallow adblocking extensions for Chrome.

    Now that it's open source, I would be greatly appreciative if someone could work on a version of Chrom(ium/e) for Android that has either extensions support, or built-in support for AdBlock-style blocking (i.e., don't even make the HTTP request if the URL or DOM element matches a pattern).

    I want the (admittedly superior) performance of the optimized Blink layout engine and V8 JS engine, which no other browsers (that also offer extensions or ad-blocking built-in) offer; I also want the Google-specific blobs (Chromecast in particular); and I want/need AdBlock. Lacking this, I just end up using Firefox for Android, which has decent performance but not great, and has several site compatibility issues that Chrome doesn't for some reason.

    It'd be awesome to see an adblocking fork of Chrome have a larger number of users than "mainline" Chrome.

    1. Re:Fork with extensions support by LoneBoco · · Score: 2

      Are you using AdBlock Plus for Firefox or uBlock? ABP might be a little too intensive for a mobile CPU and you might be better served with uBlock on your phone. I personally use uBlock on Firefox for Android and I don't have any performance issues, but that's just me.

    2. Re:Fork with extensions support by allquixotic · · Score: 1

      I switched over to uBlock about a month and a half ago, and it didn't noticeably improve performance. Chrome just renders the page faster. I have no idea how. It's magic. And when I say Chrome is faster, I mean it's faster *with ads* than Firefox *without ads*. You'd think the one that has less network and drawing work to do would be faster. A few string comparisons is nothing next to the amount of work that needs to be done to actually load those ads.

      I'm using a Note 4, so there is ample CPU and RAM.

    3. Re:Fork with extensions support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A few string comparisons? They are a huge amount of regular expressions (thousand to tens of thousands) for each network request and then in each page ABP or uBlock injects some (read over 12,500 for ABP and less for uBlock after it runs regex comparisons to see what applies) CSS and then the browser has to parse all of that in addition to the page it downloaded. And, if there are any iframes, it has to do that all over again.

    4. Re:Fork with extensions support by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      If you use hosts based blocking you end up nuking 99% of what you hit with using a typical browser. Best of all it also stops crappy little ads in apps, reduces your phone's data usage, and no need for extensions.

    5. Re:Fork with extensions support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I root my phone and install adblock thru F-Droid. What I really miss from Chrome is reflow text on resize. Now i have to scroll all the time to read anything at a decent text size. Opera mobile fixes that for now...

  12. ALMOST! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's the parts that are NOT open sourced that you need to worry about.

  13. Re:FrisT sBtop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    did you have a stroke while writing this?

  14. Now Almost Entirely Open Source by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    Well, get back to us when it's entirely open source, otherwise this is non-news. That's like a news crew reporting that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is almost falling down.

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  15. How long are you willing to wait? by tepples · · Score: 1

    A Chromium build that has full feature parity with Google Chrome might have to wait another decade until certain MPEG patents expire.

  16. They don't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    want you to know how they track and monitor you (and then sell your data to the government). It's "proprietary" secret information.