Other Chromium Legacy: Google Chrome for OS X 10.7 – 10.9

[Xde]

I appreciate, that Chromium is a up to date browser for 10.9 Mavericks.
It seem to work very fine and is now installed.
I would love if Apple Safari would be system independent and always up to date. As many system dependent things are unnesserary for me. This is so annoying with Apple software.
So I switched to Firefox. But Firefox is sadly already out of luck, too.
Now I am trying Chromium legacy, and beside that I am not a friend of Google,
it seems to be my next browser. One question, why is Chromium so big in size. A half gigabyte for a browser is astonishing, as Firefox was a third in code size.
Thanks to all, who are involved in keeping Chromium compatible with Mavericks...

 

[NewbiePPC]

I appreciated a lot to have a modern web browser for the older OS and the work of the developers it's awersome but I also have my complaints with Chrome based browsers, I see a epiphany port in macports that seems to build in snow leopard+ somebody tried it or it has the same system certificates and TLS problems being based in webkit? (My Lion MP 2,1 it's on my parents house so I cant tested myself at the moment)

 

[MacBiter]

I appreciate, that Chromium is a up to date browser for 10.9 Mavericks.
It seem to work very fine and is now installed.
I would love if Apple Safari would be system independent and always up to date. As many system dependent things are unnesserary for me. This is so annoying with Apple software.
So I switched to Firefox. But Firefox is sadly already out of luck, too.
Now I am trying Chromium legacy, and beside that I am not a friend of Google,
it seems to be my next browser. One question, why is Chromium so big in size. A half gigabyte for a browser is astonishing, as Firefox was a third in code size.
Thanks to all, who are involved in keeping Chromium compatible with Mavericks...

Firefox 78 ESR is still more or less fully functional, especially after 78 ESR put an update to widevine in. However it's still a pain with some websites - e.g. Facebook and BBC Sounds - where you have to go into Tools/Web Developer/Storage Inspector, delete the contents of Local Storage, and refresh the page, before they will work. For this reason I use Chromium Legacy for some websites, and will be using it more as Firefox slowly degrades with a lack of updates.

Chromium is a mixed bag: it's not Google Chrome but Legacy actually delivers the latest version of Chrome.

As for the difference in size - Firefox notoriously hogs memory for each separate webpage it opens. I've just checked Activity Monitor and Firefox (admittedly with many more tabs open) is using way more than 1GB RAM, while Chromium is using only a fraction of that.

It would be nice if someone would develop a version of Safari that has the latest features but runs in older versions of the OS ... but after all these years it ain't going to happen.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

It would be nice if someone would develop a version of Safari that has the latest features but runs in older versions of the OS ... but after all these years it ain't going to happen.

It could be done, someone would need to backport webkit. It has been done before: https://sourceforge.net/p/leopard-webkit/wiki/Home/ (Note: Not maintained anymore and too outdated to be useful, binaries are for Leopard PPC only.)

My feeling is that all of these projects are a massive amount of effort, and we don't need more than one browser. (But I'm really, really glad it's not zero browsers.)

I appreciated a lot to have a modern web browser for the older OS and the work of the developers it's awersome but I also have my complaints with Chrome based browsers, I see a epiphany port in macports that seems to build in snow leopard+ somebody tried it or it has the same system certificates and TLS problems being based in webkit? (My Lion MP 2,1 it's on my parents house so I cant tested myself at the moment)

It builds, but it's very, very buggy. I don't recommend it. (Note, this is webkit-gtk, so it can't be used with Safari. I don't know what it would take to port those patches to non-GTK WebKit...)

 

[Xde]

Thanks for comments.
I did not recognized the memory management in Firefox, but will try it.

I'm not a developer, but I imagine, adopting Safari to earlier OS is not only a Webkit problem.
Apple has made so much changes in the OS in the last years, like iCloud, Applepay, darkmode,
data exchange with iOS devices, I lost all the names for all that features.
And many changes are tied deeply into the Apps.
In my imagination, this constant changes in the OS makes the Apps incompatible.
If it would be Webkit only, maybe we would have already any solution.

Maybe its in some way possible to get a new webkit running in Safari 9 for example.
But thats out of my knowledge.

Anyway, its nice to have Chromium to hopefully have still some years more with our Intel machine,
without APFS nightmare hidden partition and T2 problems and other new world headache,
in an clearly easy light OS X, though outdated.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I'm not a developer, but I imagine, adopting Safari to earlier OS is not only a Webkit problem.
Apple has made so much changes in the OS in the last years, like iCloud, Applepay, darkmode,
data exchange with iOS devices, I lost all the names for all that features.

You wouldn't need to touch any of that.

Safari, the app with a UI and tabs and bookmarks and an address bar, is separate from the WebKit framework which actually renders websites. Apple even provides instructions on how to run Safari with a different build of WebKit. WebKit is open source and anyone can create a custom version.

In order to make Safari support modern websites, you wouldn't need to backport or even touch newer versions of the Safari app, you'd "just" need to backport the open source WebKit framework*. This is easier said than done, but again, it has been done before. Thanks to internetzel, PPC Leopard users can run Safari with a version of WebKit that's more-or-less on par with stock macOS El Capitan.

Anyway, this is all entirely theoretical. I don't have the skill to do something like this on my own, and I frankly think any such effort would be better used improving Chromium Legacy. There's still a kernel panic to fix, it seems to be caused by a crash in MessagePumpKqueue.

* You would still be stuck with the OS's outdated https functionality, but you can work around that with a proxy.

 

[MacBiter]

A slight bug in Chromium Legacy. When I stream something (e.g., playing ITV, or BBC Sounds, or an Audible preview), something very odd happens:
After between 2 and 3 minutes (the precise time varies), the stream stops and if there's a Pause button, it turns to Play. When I resume Play, the stream resumes from where it left off and all is well and there is no further occurrence. This doesn't happen in Firefox.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

A slight bug in Chromium Legacy. When I stream something (e.g., playing ITV, or BBC Sounds, or an Audible preview), something very odd happens:

If you watch the system console (as in, Utilities/Console.app) while media is playing, do you see a log message that goes something like: "ReportCrash Saved crash report for [something with 'Chromium' in its name]" around the time the audio stops playing? I wonder if the decoder process is crashing.

Also, can you try going to chrome://flags and disabling "Hardware-accelerated video decode where available" to test if that makes a difference?

 

[MacBiter]

If you watch the system console (as in, Utilities/Console.app) while media is playing, do you see a log message that goes something like: "ReportCrash Saved crash report for [something with 'Chromium' in its name]" around the time the audio stops playing? I wonder if the decoder process is crashing.

Also, can you try going to chrome://flags and disabling "Hardware-accelerated video decode where available" to test if that makes a difference?

The only ReportCrash today was when I changed the Chromium flag! But it was to do with SIMBL, not with Chromium. Anyway, I've disabled that flag and will monitor things to see if it's made a difference.

 

[davigarma]

It seems that this 103 is the latest version of Chromium. Now I get the message that to use Chromium I must go to OSX 10.13. If I go to the Giturb page, Bluebox announces a new branch. This is strange, since I have 10.10 Yosemite

 

[Wowfunhappy]

It seems that this 103 is the latest version of Chromium. Now I get the message that to use Chromium I must go to OSX 10.13. If I go to the Giturb page, Bluebox announces a new branch. This is strange, since I have 10.10 Yosemite

It’s just cosmetic. Google apparently intends to drop official support for 10.11 and 10.12, but as long as Bluebox is maintaining Chromium Legacy, you don’t have to care what Google supports.

Google’s code assumes that any OS which is older than 10.12 must be 10.11, presumably because Chromium isn’t supposed to work on anything older than that.

 

[davigarma]

It’s just cosmetic. Google apparently intends to drop official support for 10.11 and 10.12, but as long as Bluebox is maintaining Chromium Legacy, you don’t have to care what Google supports.

Google’s code assumes that any OS which is older than 10.12 must be 10.11, presumably because Chromium isn’t supposed to work on anything older than that.

The day BlueBox gets tired, we will have to use Epic Browser, do you know it? Encrypted and integrated VPN is changed with a click to different countries. It also has Ublock origin integrated with the name "Umbrella". Based on Chromium 91 and compatible with Chrome Web Store extensions. It has everything Google is tasting. . Pity that starts by 10.10 Yosemite, Mavericks is left out

Greetings

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Chromium 91 natively supports OS X 10.10, so that’s why that works. (But I’d rather use Linux than 10.10.)

My backup plan is to use VMware, but this is why I do everything I can to make Bluebox’s job easier, triaging bugs and such.

 

[davigarma]

Chromium 91 natively supports OS X 10.10, so that’s why that works. (But I’d rather use Linux than 10.10.)

My backup plan is to use VMware, but this is why I do everything I can to make Bluebox’s job easier, triaging bugs and such.

I have never been able to understand why on my machine 10.10 Yosemite is the fastest OSX of all. Work in Photoshop twice as fast as much more powerful machines. Happy work. But I know very well that 10.10 is also Apple's most abandoned OSX. The X Protect has not been updated by Apple since 2017, while Mavericks or even Mountain Lion is. Mystery. I have many protections on the machine by other means and I am not a novice. For this reason, Bluebox maintenance and its Chromium maintenance is highly appreciated by many users. Epic I like and I feel safe as in Chromium Legacy

Greetings

 

[MacBiter]

If you watch the system console (as in, Utilities/Console.app) while media is playing, do you see a log message that goes something like: "ReportCrash Saved crash report for [something with 'Chromium' in its name]" around the time the audio stops playing? I wonder if the decoder process is crashing.

Also, can you try going to chrome://flags and disabling "Hardware-accelerated video decode where available" to test if that makes a difference?

Unfortunately, still getting the bug even with flag disabled.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

If you re-download the Chromium Legacy Downloader preference pane... I added something that I think just might have gotten rid of that pesky kernel panic.

 

[MacBiter]

If you re-download the Chromium Legacy Downloader preference pane... I added something that I think just might have gotten rid of that pesky kernel panic.

My current version is 98 - is that the latest? I've noticed a few changes since I last updated Chromium : I no longer get the "Page not found" error when I launch (which only referred to the home page and could be ignored); then I got "Chrome is up to date!"; now I just get the previous session, as expected.

Two more things: one, I haven't had a kernel panic for months; two, I still get the weird single pausing requiring an intervention after 2+ minutes on streaming sites like ITV Hub and BBC Sounds.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

My current version is 98 - is that the latest? I've noticed a few changes since I last updated Chromium : I no longer get the "Page not found" error when I launch (which only referred to the home page and could be ignored); then I got "Chrome is up to date!"; now I just get the previous session, as expected.

Two more things: one, I haven't had a kernel panic for months; two, I still get the weird single pausing requiring an intervention after 2+ minutes on streaming sites like ITV Hub and BBC Sounds.

If you're not using my Preference Pane (if you were, it should have auto updated), the latest stable version is always at: https://github.com/blueboxd/chromium-legacy/releases/tag/stable

The panic hasn't been fixed; you've likely just been lucky. I'm finding I don't experience any panics when I launch Chromium with a combination of two command line flags: --message-loop-type-ui and --no-sandbox. The former of these is now automatically set in the latest version of my Preference Pane. The latter flag, however, removes a nice (if non-essential) extra layer of security.

I don't know what to make of your pausing issue, I can't replicate it myself and I'm on the same OS. If you are on 98, updating to the latest stable version (100.0.4896.127) might help?

 

[MacBiter]

If you're not using my Preference Pane (if you were, it should have auto updated), the latest stable version is always at: https://github.com/blueboxd/chromium-legacy/releases/tag/stable

The panic hasn't been fixed; you've likely just been lucky. I'm finding I don't experience any panics when I launch Chromium with a combination of two command line flags: --message-loop-type-ui and --no-sandbox. The former of these is now automatically set in the latest version of my Preference Pane. The latter flag, however, removes a nice (if non-essential) extra layer of security.

I don't know what to make of your pausing issue, I can't replicate it myself and I'm on the same OS. If you are on 98, updating to the latest stable version (100.0.4896.127) might help?

I've downloaded the latest stable version (101), and have implemented --message-loop-type-ui via Terminal (a scary number of error messages! but Chromium has launched ok and is running).
I spoke too soon about panics - I did have another one a few days ago, so it will be interesting to see if that flag has an effect.

Questions:
- do I have to implement that flag every time I launch Chromium?
- I'm using the Preference Pane to update, but where do I get the latest version of the Pane as per your advice above?.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I've downloaded the latest stable version (101), and have implemented --message-loop-type-ui via Terminal (a scary number of error messages! but Chromium has launched ok and is running).
I spoke too soon about panics - I did have another one a few days ago, so it will be interesting to see if that flag has an effect.

Questions:
- do I have to implement that flag every time I launch Chromium?
- I'm using the Preference Pane to update, but where do I get the latest version of the Pane as per your advice above?.

I'm no longer entirely sure those command line flags do anything. Like you, I spoke too soon—it's weird, because it's very possible to go a long time without any panics, and then have a bunch of them at once. There is some evidence that the aforementioned flags avert a portion of the crashes, but it's really hard to know for sure.

At some point, I think I'm probably going to have to write a kext to patch the kernel.

The latest version of the preference pane is always available here: https://jonathanalland.com/downloads/chromium-legacy-downloader.zip. I recommend re-downloading it once every few months or so, as I make small tweaks from time to time. The irony of updating an updater is not lost on me, sorry!

 

[MacBiter]

I'm absolutely climbing the walls in frustration. Many websites I've accessed quite happily in the past are now returning a message:

Your connection is not private​

Attackers might be trying to steal your information from xxxxxxxxxxxxx.com (for example, passwords, messages or credit cards). Learn more


NET::ERR_CERT_DATE_INVALID


Most often it won't even allow me to override the warning, but tells me I cannot visit the site "right now". I've set the security setting to least secure, have cleared cache, and quit / relaunched Chrome, but nothing works. When I was using Chrome 94, this was an occasional problem and I could usually override. This is happening in Chrome 101. Should I revert to an earlier version?

Many websites - Facebook, BBC, YouTube, Channel 4, ITV, Netflix, Amazon, and others - work fine, but less well known sites that include ones I've used for years (and which I could open fine in Firefox 78) are giving a problem.

It would be better if I could get links from - e.g. Facebook posts - to open in another browser but no browser offers this facility. Understandably I guess. But it's a serious headache.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I'm absolutely climbing the walls in frustration. Many websites I've accessed quite happily in the past are now returning a message:

Your connection is not private​

Do you have the ISRG Root X1 certificate in Keychain Access?

 

[MacBiter]

Do you have the ISRG Root X1 certificate in Keychain Access?

View attachment 2008899

No, no I don't.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

No, no I don't.

That'll do it! This doesn't technically have anything to do with Chromium Legacy, older versions of macOS simply lack the certificate. The problem does not occur in Firefox because Firefox does not use the system certificate store. This is yet another setup thing my Preference Pane will fix automatically should you want to use it.

Alternately, the below Terminal command will install the certificate:

curl 'http://x1.i.lencr.org' > /tmp/ISRGRootX1.pem && sudo security -v add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain /tmp/ISRGRootX1.pem

Please run this command over a trusted private internet connection. (i.e., home internet good, public wifi at coffee shop bad.)

 

[MacBiter]

That'll do it! This is yet another setup thing my Preference Pane will fix automatically should you want to use it. It's not technically Chromium Legacy's fault, older versions of macOS simply lack the certificate. The problem does not occur in Firefox because Firefox does not use the system certificate store.

Alternately, the below Terminal command will install the certificate:

curl 'http://x1.i.lencr.org' > /tmp/ISRGRootX1.pem && sudo security -v add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain /tmp/ISRGRootX1.pem

Please run this command over a trusted private internet connection. (i.e., home internet good, public wifi at coffee shop bad.)

That fixed it! Thanks .