The Sad State Of Web Browser Support Currently Within Debian

[Tolkem]

Hi everyone! Hope you're all having a nice life!

Just bumped into this post https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Web-Browser-Packages-Debian while checking my feed.
An excerpt:

All of the Debian-shipped browsers (Chromium, Firefox ESR, Falkon, ...) are having severe open security issues which the package maintainers apparently are not able to fix easily:
- Chromium is still at version 90.0.4430.212-1 which means it contains tons of security issues. The Debian Wiki recommends switching to a different browser. Those who have installed the browser previously and rely on automatic updates are left with an unpatched browser without even noticing.

I agree, that's why I use Firefox from Mozilla's website, meaning I download the tarball, extract to /opt, and make it available in KDE's menu. As for mesa, I use the mx-ahs repo to keep that up-to-date, well, it is newer than Debian's default. I like Debian, but sometimes I wish they offered newer pkgs.

 

[dos2unix]

I like Debian, but sometimes I wish they offered newer pkgs.

Ahhh... the age old, newer vs more tested and more stable.
But like you, I have found that "older and more tested" doesn't always mean better and more stable.
So I tend to go with the "latest and greatest" rolling release distro's.

Sometimes bleeding edge can bite you too, but in my humble opinion, it seems less often.

 

[Linuxembourg]

Yes it is my biggest issue with Debian. I don't really like Firefox and have used Chromium based browsers for years.

I am currently using an AppImage of Chromium 98 I got from apprepo.de and have emailed the guy running it to find out more/ask for stuff/offer assistance but not had a response. I am kinda stuck using an ancient version with security issues, or a bleeding edge development one with bugs.

I have been thinking about trying to use the github actions appimage builder but I am not sure I really know what it does, or whether I'd get it to work. Or where I would get the requisite deb package (or source) for v96.

It'd be cool if Debian could trust the arch repo (or whatever) and build appimages of their Chromium and just forget about maintaining it for Debian. Or they put the trust onto the users I suppose. Admittedly, I have no idea whether this is a viable idea, whether it solves security issues, etc. But they are currently offering a version of chromium that they do not recommend using, which is bizarre.

 

[craigevil]

I run Debian unstable, Firefox 95 just updated today. One day after it was officially released.

Chromium, I use the flatpak, which is version 96.0.4664.93.

 

[Linuxembourg]

Chromium, I use the flatpak, which is version 96.0.4664.93.

I think I will need to try flatpak. I believe they are closer to appimages in terms of performance and size than they are to snaps. So it should not be much difference.

 

[kc1di]

This is one reason I no longer use Debian as my desktop daily driver. I use mint most often a good compromise between debian and Mint is MX It's browsers are fairly up to date and may explain one of the reasons it's so popular today.
Back a number of years ago I never thought I would go away from debian but the packages seem to get older all time and unless you want to use unstable there is not much hope of that changing.

 

[captain-sensible]

This is one reason I no longer use Debian as my desktop daily driver. I use mint most often a good compromise between debian and Mint is MX It's browsers are fairly up to date and may explain one of the reasons it's so popular today.
Back a number of years ago I never thought I would go away from debian but the packages seem to get older all time and unless you want to use unstable there is not much hope of that changing.

but you can install Brave web browser eg on Debian 11 , i've seen articles on how to do it

 

[Tolkem]

It'd be cool if Debian could trust the arch repo (or whatever) and build appimages of their Chromium and just forget about maintaining it for Debian.

I use Chromium too. I installed it by using Mint's build repo. Read here for more info http://packages.linuxmint.com/search.php?release=any&section=any&keyword=chromium You'll need to create a repo file, something like chromium-mint.list in /etc/apt/sources.list.d and add the repo there, like:

#Chromium repo from Mint
deb https://packages.linuxmint.com mint_version_here upstream

Set the prioity

sudo nano /etc/apt/preferences.d/mint-chromium-pin

and add the following:

# Allow upgrading only chromium from Mint repository
Package: chromium
Pin: origin packages.linuxmint.com
Pin-Priority: 500

# Never prefer other packages from the Mint repository
Package: *
Pin: origin packages.linuxmint.com
Pin-Priority: 1

Then run

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

That's it. You could just download the .deb pkg too, and install via apt, without adding the repo, however, you'll have to check once in a while for newer releases, and update Chromium manually.

 

[Linuxembourg]

@Tolkem If I do follow your advice and end up featuring in this.......I will never forgive you!

 

[Tolkem]

@Tolkem If I do follow your advice and end up featuring in this.......I will never forgive you!

Well, you won't be mixing repos. That post refers to mixing Debian's stable + unstable or testing repos, which is not advisable. FWIW, I haven't had any issues so far.

 

[Linuxembourg]

Well, you won't be mixing repos. That post refers to mixing Debian's stable + unstable or testing repos, which is not advisable. FWIW, I haven't had any issues so far.

There are also people who mixed in other repos that arent Debian at all! And many who were trying to do similar to what you've done with Chromium (but failed).

If I read your setup correctly, it's only downloading Chromium itself from the mint repo and none of the dependencies. I presume it pulls in the relevant dependencies from the debian repos and if they arent there, Chromium breaks. Rather than pulling them in from mint and potentially breaking the system. Am i right?

 

[Tolkem]

There are also people who mixed in other repos that arent Debian at all! And many who were trying to do similar to what you've done with Chromium (but failed).

If I read your setup correctly, it's only downloading Chromium itself from the mint repo and none of the dependencies. I presume it pulls in the relevant dependencies from the debian repos and if they arent there, Chromium breaks. Rather than pulling them in from mint and potentially breaking the system. Am i right?

If you just download the .deb pkg and install manually, then yes, you are. However, like I said before, I haven't had any issues with it. You can check dependencies here https://mint.pkgs.org/20.2/mint-upstream-amd64/chromium_96.0.4664.93~linuxmint1+uma_amd64.deb.html and then find if they're present in Debian's repos, which they are.

 

[Lord Boltar]

Google-chrome-stable Download (DEB, RPM)

Download google-chrome-stable packages for CentOS, DEB Universal, RPM Universal

pkgs.org

Has Chrome version for Debian as google-chrome-stable_96.0.4664.93-1_amd64.deb