chromium fonts vs chromium portable vs chrome (windows 7)

[Mitch Deoudes]

I just installed Chromium (installer version), after unsuccessfully trying to register the portable version as my default browser.  Oddly, the UI fonts (tabs, bookmarks bar, omnibox) look, for lack of a better phrase, like ass.  Oddlier, the version of Chromium Portable I was using looks fine, and identical to Chrome itself.

It may be hard to discern from the attached pic, but notice how portable (top) and chrome (bottom) look identical.  Chromium installed version (middle) has oversized omnibox text which is sort of mashed together.  The other UI elements have text which is simultaneously "skinny" (looks mis-scaled or something), and has weird kerning.  The easiest comparison is the bookmark on the bar for "Google", or the folder for "Bank".  Also, note how the installed version font makes the bookmarks bar significantly longer.  In fact, it causes it to wrap off the right end of the window with the ">>" button to expand, while the other two fit the whole thing in.  Other UI elements, like the "hamburger" menu button, are similarly oversized and a bit blurry.  

I googled for solutions, and only found a suggestion to turn on DirectWrite, which I did to no avail.

Any ideas about how I can accomplish one of two things:

1)  make Chromium Portable my default browser, which is what I was originally trying to do.  The "make default browser" button in Settings doesn't do anything.  I tried the registry hack here, with appropriate substitutions, but no love:  http://rsequence.blogspot.com/2012/06/make-google-chrome-portable-system.html

2)  make Chromium Installed look right.  "make default browser" seems to work.  In fact, Chromium Portable now comes up with "Chromium is the default browser", even though Chromium Installed actually is.

Versions:

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1

Chromium Portable Version 37.0.2007.0 (271872)  (winpenpack build)

Chromium (installed) Version 38.0.2088.0 (282653) (64-bit)

Chrome Version 33.0.1750.154 m

Both Chromium versions from woolsys.

[PhistucK]

These are unstable versions and should not be used for everyday browsing.

The closest thing you can create is compile a stable release version equivalent of Chromium and use it, but it would be a dumbed down version of Chrome, with important features disabled.

Alternatively, install Google Chrome and disable most of its Google connected features and you will have a better version of Chromium - and stable.

☆PhistucK

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[Mitch Deoudes]

Thanks for the reply.  To be honest, I'm surprised to hear that the answer is "don't use Chromium."  (And from the Chromium Discussion group!)  

Can you give details on the important missing features?  I was specifically looking to switch away from Chrome to get away from forced inclusion of features I don't want/need.  Including some like the new Notification Alarm Bell (googling will provide many threads full of irate users) which not only doesn't allow for opt-out, but re-enables itself if you try to turn it off.  I don't want to have to be suspicious of what my browser is doing/reporting/running in the background, and I took Chromium to be a cleaner, less googlified version of Chrome.  Plus, it seems to be faster - at least for me.

[PhistucK]

​It is not supposed to be faster (in terms of JavaScript, HTML and CSS at least), because both of them use the same engine (unless you are using different versions). However, using Chrome with a clean profile (or with certain options disabled) should be just as fast.

Chrome supports H264, AAC and MP3​ which are non free codecs required in a lot of websites for playing audio and video.

Chrome has Flash built in, while Chromium does not and will not support the regular (NPAPI) Flash by the end of the year when NPAPI support is dropped (this is moot if Adobe happens to release an PPAPI version of Flash, of course, but such announcement was never made).

Chrome updates automatically with security fixes, Chromium must be updated manually or with a script that takes a build from an untrusted source (or you must build it every time, which takes hours and can be a bit complicated, unfortunately).

Chrome has synchronization, Geolocation, speech input and speech synthesis features, which I am not sure Chromium supports without an API key (and even then, it is limited to a certain amount of requests).

Crash report are not sent to Google (this is optional in Chrome, but does not exist in Chromium at all), so the crashes might not get discovered and later fixed.

There are more differences, but those were a few examples.

Also, in Chrome, you can disable most of the phone home features that Chromium does not have.

Chromium is not meant to be a browser for everyday usage, it is the open source project that powers most of Chrome. So, yes, you are advised not to use it for everyday usage.

Regarding the notification feature, I think Chromium suffers from the same feature (you call it a problem) and if you want to get rid of it, you may have to change the source code and compile your own (less tested) version of Chromium.

Frankly, I am surprised there is no way to disable it. You can suggest that as a feature, though, at crbug.com, assuming you could not find an existing feature request over there.

☆PhistucK

[Mitch Deoudes]

Thanks for the detailed info.  The codec thing sounds like a problem, for sure.  (Though I'm already forced to be multi-browser, for other reasons - so not insurmountable.)   I'd say the others range roughly from stuff I don't use to stuff I actively would like to avoid, though.

If there were a comprehensive list of "phone home" features, this would be an easier decision.  Part of the problem is that after having to dig through forum posts in order to disable unwanted features in Chrome more than once, I've just lost confidence - and really, I don't want to be required to actively monitor apps like that.  If it's working the way I want, I'd prefer to just have it stay that way.  But perhaps one of the other Chromium-based projects is a better choice.

p.s. - w.r.t. the Alarm Bell:  I haven't experienced it with Chromium.  And yeah, many others have beaten me to the bug reporting.  It's very much non-disableable, and it re-enables itself whenever you visit youtube or watch full-screen video - which is way too sneaky for my liking.