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  • Hacker News
  • this is great. I miss extensions in android browser. That existing extensions from web store would work out of the box is cherry on top.
    by newusertoday
  • Curious how it compares to Brave browser on Android
    by mrbluecoat
  • Brave is crap. Use Firefox then
    by methuselah_in
  • It would be really useful if we could sync bookmarks and history with Google's servers.

    Some Chromium builds has that: https://chromium.woolyss.com/#google-api-keys

    by maxloh
  • I suspect these 'alternative' Chromium-based browsers are mostly aimed at those (like me) who want to keep their data out of Google's (et. al.) reach and as such would consider 'sync with the data parasites' as a misfeature.
    by hagbard_c
  • I've been looking for a Kiwi Browser replacement since it stopped updating. I'll check this out.
    by xnx
  • Great job on this release! I've been waiting for something like it since my favorite browser, Kiwi, stopped getting updates.

    Without updates, many sites will likely stop working with it soon.

    Kiwi had some great features, like disabling AMP mode, rearranging the Chrome Store for mobile, and customizable tab layouts, etc. These features might interest others as well.

    by superasn
  • I miss kiwi.
    by typpilol
  • I tried installing uBlock Origin but the web store says I have to sign in and enable sync to download it. I didn't want to do that so I tried unpacking the extension .zip from GitHub and loading unpacked, but then the app just crashed.

    Is extension support only meant to work with a Google account signed in or am I missing something?

    EDIT: I tried loading the store page in desktop mode but I can't install the non-Lite uBlock Origin, I guess because this Chromium version doesn't support Manifest V2 anymore. I'm still on Kiwi Browser which supports MV2.

    by doright
  • Fascinating, I use Firefox because on Android I can use extensions (for this https://plzat.me). This is a great alternative.

    Edit: hard to find where to get this browser. Do I need to build it myself?

    by xrd
  • There is Quetta browser that is stable and support extensions on mobile.
    by theusus
  • Click on 'Releases' and you'll see a link to an apk download.
    by rahimnathwani
  • With Obtanium you can add the URL (https://github.com/jqssun/android-helium-browser) and it will automatically notify when a new version is available. Kind of like a package manager for GitHub and other sources (for stuff not available on F-Droid).
    by Fnoord
  • Excellent, please make sure you push for financial support in your project.

    Kiwi was a great browser but has since shutdown. Android needs something like Kiwi that also has a steady income to support itself in future.

    by CommanderData
  • This is really great work, but can you comment on whether or not any Google-based "safebrowsing", etc is still enabled in the code base?

    Have you thought about merging your efforts with ungoogled-chromium (Android)?

    There USED to be an ungoogled-chromium for Android (circa v88 chrome, the APK is still available for download) that also allowed extentions.

    by vrinsd
  • Ah thought I saw a Helium browser mentioned recently on HN[0] and thought this was the same thing. So this is not the same as this Helium browser [1]?

    [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45366867

    [1]: https://helium.computer/

    by sphars
  • The repository introduces it as indeed based on Helium [0].

    The cool part about Helium is that it's based on patches, rather than forking the full source code. I don't know how sustainable this is in the long term, but it's an interesting approach for sure.

    [0]: https://helium.computer/

    by VPenkov
  • For people looking for a more vanilla experience I'm publishing Google's official extension supporting Chromium builds for Android here https://github.com/andrewginns/chromium-browser-snapshots-An...

    Combined Obtainium it's easy to keep it updated. https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium

    by reckless
  • I hoped these were builds with H264 support.. but if you just publish these Google-provided builds they don't have it..
    by zb3
  • Do you have any plans to push it to F-Droid?

    That would raise the value of that project quite a lot (at least for me, but I feel like there are others, thinking similarly).

    Please, push it to F-Droid!

    by imcritic
  • f-droid is unsuitable for a browser. they regularly block security patches for many months and violate the android security model. anyone who cares about their privacy or security should not be using it
    by orba9
  • I second this!
    by xrd