Bug#956012: debian-edu-config: use DuckDuckGo as Chromium's default search provider

[Mike Gabriel]

Package: chromium
Severity: wishlist

Currently (during the bullseye release cycle), chromium uses Google as
the default search provider.

With the below snippet dropped into
/etc/chromium/policies/managed/<somefile>.json we could switch that to
DuckDuckGo:

{
"DefaultSearchProviderEnabled":true,
"DefaultSearchProviderName": "DuckDuckGo",
"DefaultSearchProviderIconURL":"https://duckduckgo.com/favicon.ico",
"DefaultSearchProviderEncodings":["UTF-8"],
"DefaultSearchProviderSearchURL":"https://duckduckgo.com/?q={searchTerms}",

"DefaultSearchProviderSuggestURL":"https://duckduckgo.com/ac/?q={searchTerms}&type=list",
"DefaultSearchProviderNewTabURL":"https://duckduckgo.com/chrome_newtab",
}

Maybe an option for Chromium in Debian?

Mike

--

DAS-NETZWERKTEAM
c\o Technik- und Ökologiezentrum Eckernförde
Mike Gabriel, Marienthaler str. 17, 24340 Eckernförde
mobile: +49 (1520) 1976 148
landline: +49 (4351) 850 8940

GnuPG Fingerprint: 9BFB AEE8 6C0A A5FF BF22 0782 9AF4 6B30 2577 1B31
mail: mike.g...@das-netzwerkteam.de, http://das-netzwerkteam.de

[Andres Salomon]

On Mon, 17 Jan 2022 14:03:53 -0300 Leandro Cunha wrote:
> Hi,
>
> What do you think, Andres?
> This idea is good.
> I use duckduckgo as my default search engine.
> I don't know if your idea is to continue with browser maintenance.

Thanks for the nudge on this, and sorry for the late response.

For the past week I've been using duckduckgo as my search engine. I think I'm ready to switch the chromium package over to it.

I don't like when packages have frequent NEWS.Debian updates, but I'm planning to bundle a bunch of updates into one entry. I'll also mention this change in there as well.

[Mike Gabriel]

This is very awesome. Thanks!

Mike
--

DAS-NETZWERKTEAM
c\o Technik- und Ökologiezentrum Eckernförde

Mike Gabriel, Marienthaler Str. 17, 24340 Eckernförde

[Andres Salomon]

On Mon, 06 Apr 2020 06:30:53 +0000 Mike Gabriel
<mike.g...@das-netzwerkteam.de> wrote:
> Package: chromium
> Severity: wishlist
>
> Currently (during the bullseye release cycle), chromium uses Google
as
> the default search provider.
>
> With the below snippet dropped into
> /etc/chromium/policies/managed/<somefile>.json we could switch that
to
> DuckDuckGo:
>
> {
> "DefaultSearchProviderEnabled":true,
> "DefaultSearchProviderName": "DuckDuckGo",
>
"DefaultSearchProviderIconURL":"https://duckduckgo.com/favicon.ico",
> "DefaultSearchProviderEncodings":["UTF-8"],
>
"DefaultSearchProviderSearchURL":"https://duckduckgo.com/?q={searchTerms}",
>
>
"DefaultSearchProviderSuggestURL":"https://duckduckgo.com/ac/?q={searchTerms}&type=list",
>
"DefaultSearchProviderNewTabURL":"https://duckduckgo.com/chrome_newtab",
> }
>
> Maybe an option for Chromium in Debian?
>

Unfortunately, this recipe is for administrators that want to force a
default search engine. There's no way to change the default search
engine to something else through the UI, so this won't work for us. We
just want to change the default search engine, and allow users to set
it to something else (including back to Google, if that's their
preference) in Settings -> Search Engine.

I'm trying to come up with a patch to change it (similar to
https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/patches/extra/ungoogled-chromium/prepopulated-search-engines.patch
), but if you're aware of a simple config file snippet that would
change the default but can be overridden, that would be better than a
patch.

Thanks,
Andres

[Andres Salomon]

Alright, got it - using the "recommended" subdirectory instead of
"managed" does the trick. It'll be in the next release after
104.0.5112.79-1.

On Wed, Aug 3, 2022 at 14:07, Andres Salomon <dili...@queued.net>
wrote:

[Arthur Weinberger]

Hi,

This change caused my chromium browser to report that it's being managed by my "organization". I thought that my machine was somehow compromised. This is terrifying! I wound up deleting my entire chromium profile before I discovered that the root cause was this DuckDuckGo config change. Even in the "recommended" subdirectory, chromium still reports that it's being managed. This is terrifying! I hope you revert this change to save others from the panic I went through.

The patch approach listed in this thread might be a better way.

Thanks

Arthur Weinberger

[Andres Salomon]

It looks like the other way to do this is through
/etc/chromium/master_preferences, which will only take effect when
people first install and run chromium.

"search_provider_overrides": [{
"enabled": true,
"encoding": "UTF-8",
"favicon_url": "https://duckduckgo.com/favicon.ico",
"new_tab_url": "https://duckduckgo.com/chrome_newtab",
"id": 2,
"keyword": "duckduckgo.com",
"name": "DuckDuckGo",
"search_url": "https://duckduckgo.com/?q={searchTerms}",
"suggest_url":

"https://duckduckgo.com/ac/?q={searchTerms}&type=list"
}],

"search_provider_overrides_version": 1,


It's not clear if that's the route we should go, but it does get rid of
the notices about the browser being managed by an organization. 🤔

[Mike Gabriel]

Hi Andres,

On So 21 Aug 2022 09:47:51 CEST, Andres Salomon wrote:

> It looks like the other way to do this is through
> /etc/chromium/master_preferences, which will only take effect when
> people first install and run chromium.
>
> "search_provider_overrides": [{
> "enabled": true,
> "encoding": "UTF-8",
> "favicon_url": "https://duckduckgo.com/favicon.ico",
> "new_tab_url": "https://duckduckgo.com/chrome_newtab",
> "id": 2,
> "keyword": "duckduckgo.com",
> "name": "DuckDuckGo",
> "search_url": "https://duckduckgo.com/?q={searchTerms}",
> "suggest_url": "https://duckduckgo.com/ac/?q={searchTerms}&type=list"
> }],
> "search_provider_overrides_version": 1,
>
>
> It's not clear if that's the route we should go, but it does get rid
> of the notices about the browser being managed by an organization. 🤔

why is this frightening? (your mail subject). Many distributors tinker
with that master_preferences file for their likings.

And policies/managed is definitely the wrong place for configuring the
search provider, as that means that users can't change it.

Another option is putting the default search provider in
policies/recommended. Haven't tested it, but it should work, as well.

See https://sunweavers.net/blog/node/135 for details / overview of
tweaking features.

Mike


--

DAS-NETZWERKTEAM
c\o Technik- und Ökologiezentrum Eckernförde

Mike Gabriel, Marienthaler Str. 17, 24340 Eckernförde

[Arthur Weinberger]

Hi Mike,

"Frightening" is my perspective on this.

When an average user sees their chromium is suddenly "managed" by their organization and they know they are not part of any organization, then their first idea will be that they have been hacked. In my case I deleted my entire chromium profile before I realized that this was the root cause.

I hope you quickly rollback this change to save others this pain and then figure out a better way to roll this forward.

Thanks

Arthur Weinberger

arthurwe...@gmail.com

[Steve McIntyre]

arthurwe...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>Hi Mike,
>
>"Frightening" is my perspective on this.
>
>When an average user sees their chromium is suddenly "managed" by their
>organization and they know they are not part of any organization, then
>their first idea will be that they have been hacked. In my case I deleted
>my entire chromium profile before I realized that this was the root cause.
>
>I hope you quickly rollback this change to save others this pain and then
>figure out a better way to roll this forward.

Nod. Even as an experienced user and developer, I was very surprised
to see this message. I have quite a few account identities set up in
my Chromium (e.g. for Google services), but I would never expect any
of them to be described as managing it.

--
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. st...@einval.com
"We're the technical experts. We were hired so that management could
ignore our recommendations and tell us how to do our jobs." -- Mike Andrews

[Andres Salomon]

I agree that it's a pretty annoying and scary message (and incorrect -
"If a software program on your system has set enterprise policies that
affect how Chrome works, you’ll see this message—even if it’s not
fully managed by an organization."
https://www.howtogeek.com/410106/why-does-chrome-say-its-managed-by-your-organization/
).

I'll switch it to using master_preferences so that message goes away,
although it also means that some people who were switched to DDG will
be switched back to Google.

[Mike Gabriel]

On So 21 Aug 2022 20:38:23 CEST, Arthur Weinberger wrote:

> Hi Mike,
>
> "Frightening" is my perspective on this.
>
> When an average user sees their chromium is suddenly "managed" by their
> organization and they know they are not part of any organization, then
> their first idea will be that they have been hacked. In my case I deleted
> my entire chromium profile before I realized that this was the root cause.
>
> I hope you quickly rollback this change to save others this pain and then
> figure out a better way to roll this forward.
>
> Thanks
> Arthur Weinberger
> arthurwe...@gmail.com
>
>

Ah, yes. I agree that using policies/managed to tweak browser settings
is frightening and also technically the wrong place.

Adjusting master_preferences is the way to go IMHO.

And it would be cool, if chromium had a master_preferences/d
subdirectory for dropping JSON snippets from individual packages.