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My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Tag: chromium (Page 3 of 20)

Some recent package updates: chromium (-ungoogled), ffmpeg, handbrake, pipewire-jack

September 1, 2023 / / 23 Comments

Chromium, regular and un-googled.

Google is speeding up its Chromium release cycle. Let’s see if I can keep up since I also build the -ungoogled variant. The latest update is 116.0.5845.140 and addresses a vulnerability.
You can now upgrade to my latest chromium and chromium-ungoogled packages. The updated Slackware 15.0 and -current packages both for chromium and chromium-ungoogled are available in my repository and its mirrors (like my own US server and the UK mirror).

FFmpeg.

A recent upgrade of Vulkan in slackware-current prompted a rebuild of the ffmpeg 5.1.3 distro package, and for the same reason I had to recompile my enhanced ffmpeg package for -current. I used the opportunity to add an embedded version of SVT-AV1, an open source AV1 video encoder originally developed by Intel in collaboration with Netflix and later adopted by the Alliance for Open Media. My ffmpeg package already contains an AV1 decoder: the dav1d library, but now you can have a go at creating your own video in AV1 format.
Get ffmpeg-5.1.3 for -current here (unrestricted distribution) or here (this version can encode AAC audio and hence restricted to distribution outside the US).

Handbrake.

The version of this package targeting slackware-current also needed a recompile due to the Vulkan update in -current and here I used the opportunity to apply a minor version upgrade.
Get handbrake-1.6.1 here (unrestricted distribution) or here (this version can encode AAC audio and hence restricted to distribution outside the US).

Pipewire-jack.

In slackware-current, pipewire is a moving target. I know that a lot of people have switched from using pulseaudio and jack to just pipewire with varying levels of success. I keep offering the Jack Audio Connection Kit support libraries for pipewire which are not present in the Slackware pipewire package, simply because Pat compiles pipewire without jack installed.
Note: my pipewire-jack package is not replacing Slackware’s pipewire! It’s an add-on which depends on my jack2 package being installed as well. It’s quite similar in purpose to my pulseaudio-jack package which aims to add support for Jack in pulseaudio.
Get pipewire-jack-0.3.79 here.

Enjoy the weekend! Eric

Chromium 114.0.5735.133 packages address critical bug

June 17, 2023 / / 27 Comments

Chromium, regular and un-googled.

Earlier this week, Google released its 114.0.5735.133 update for Chromium 114.
This is a bugfix release and on the list of addressed security issues, there’s one which is labeled as ‘critical‘, labeled CVE-2023-3214. Three other fixes are labeled with a vulnerability rating of ‘high‘.
As always, it is wise to upgrade to my latest chromium and chromium-ungoogled packages.

The updated Slackware 15.0 and -current packages both for chromium and chromium-ungoogled are available in my repository and its mirrors (like my own US server and in a short while, the UK mirror).

Cheers, Eric

Chromium 114 Early Release on Slackware

May 27, 2023 / / 10 Comments

An “early release” of Chromium 114 source code was published a few days ago, the release notes are on the developer blog.  Since Chromium 110, Google rolls out new major releases to a small sub-set of its users to monitor any potential breakage and apply fixes before the majority of users get upgraded. The formal release of Chromium will be on May 30th, but I decided to go along with the early release this time, and offer this version to Slackware users already this weekend, to celebrate the Pentecost 🙂

Looking at the new stuff in Chromium 114, there’s two things you might want to play with, since they are already contained in the browser and mostly usable in Chromium 114, but not yet enabled by default.

  • By toggling the flag “chrome://flags/#chrome-refresh-2023” from “default” to “enabled” the ongoing work will be revealed to bring a new User Interface design (Material You) to the desktop browser. A new tab design, new icons and work on the dark theme is visible. This new UI is scheduled for release in September 2023.
  • The toggle “chrome://flags/#password-manager-redesign” will enable a revamped Google Password Manager. It wants to look more like a standalone application and Chromium will ask you if you want to “install the app” which basically just adds a shortcut to “chrome://password-manager/passwords” in the “three-dots” sidebar menu. I was not yet impressed with this one, as it was unable to show me the passwords I had already saved in Chromium before. Yet is was obvious that my passwords were present since the password manager was able to check them all for compromise and weakness. So, I toggled this one back to “default” and will wait for Google to mature and stabilize it.

Also obvious is the disappearance of the “lock” icon which was an indication that you were visiting a secure “https” site. The lock has been replaced by a settings icon but functionally nothing much changed, as is shown when you click that icon.

Slackware packages (15.0 and -current) for Chromium 114.0.5735.45 are available for download from my repository or any of its mirrors.

The Un-googled version of my Chromium browser package will probably have to wait until May 30th –  the formal release date of Chromium 114. There is no sign that Eloston will release a tarball sooner.

Enjoy! Eric

Update available for Chromium 112 to address zero-day exploit

April 16, 2023 / / 15 Comments

Chromium, regular and un-googled.

Two days ago on friday, Google released an out-of-cycle stable update. This 112.0.5615.121 update addresses and fixes a zero-day exploit (CVE-2023-2033) which is already actively abused. Since it is a bug in the JavaScript engine, a hacker can craft a HTML page in such a way that your browser will run malicious code on your computer just by loading that web page.

The updated Slackware 15.0 and -current packages both for chromium and chromium-ungoogled are available in my repository and its mirrors (like my own US server and in a short while, the UK mirror). Be sure to upgrade at your earliest convenience.

I still get the occasional question “what is this un-googled chromium“? I wrote two articles about it on the blog a while ago: “How to un-google your Chromium browser experience” and “Sync and share your (Chromium and more) browser data among all your computers“. Check those out!

Cheers, Eric

Chromium (also ungoogled) now at version 112

April 8, 2023 / / 6 Comments

Last week the Chromium source code major version was upped to 112. According to the developer blog, this release addresses 16 security issues, none of them critical. Nevertheless, better safe than sorry, so the Slackware packages (15.0 and -current) for Chromium are now ready for downloading from my repository or any of its mirrors. Likewise chromium-ungoogled.

The regular as well as the Un-googled Chromium browser is now at version 112.0.5615.49.
Let’s see what version 113 brings next month – it should have enabled WebGPU by default on ChromeOS even though the Linux builds of Chrome seem to have to wait a bit longer. I wonder if it’s just compile options that I could try to exploit for my Chromium build. I am also curious to see where WebGPU is going to be used in 3D-rendered web applications.

Enjoy! Eric

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