Chromium sync login

Hi, using Chromium web browser, I’m directly connected with Google and Microsoft extensions. Google is my default search engine on the device with Fedora and the front page gives direct access to Google ecosystem used on my Android phone, switching front and back results from the two devices, the same experience using Edge on phone and Linux … my question is on the top right corner Chromium says ‘not signed in’ … why? where?

4 Likes

You can still enable sync with own API keys:
https://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/api-keys

It works for me like this:

# Install packages
sudo dnf install chromium-freeworld

# Store secrets
secret-tool clear id chromium.api.key
secret-tool clear id chromium.client.id
secret-tool clear id chromium.client.secret
echo -n "..." \
| secret-tool store --label="Chromium API Key" id chromium.api.key
echo -n "..." \
| secret-tool store --label="Chromium Client ID" id chromium.client.id
echo -n "..." \
| secret-tool store --label="Chromium Client Secret" id chromium.client.secret

# Configure launcher script
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
tee ~/.local/bin/chromium-freeworld << "EOF"
#!/usr/bin/bash
export LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME="$(vainfo 2> /dev/null \
| sed -n -r -e "/^vainfo:\sDriver\sversion:\s\S*\s/{s///;s/\s.*$//p}")"
export GOOGLE_API_KEY="\
$(secret-tool lookup id chromium.api.key)"
export GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_ID="\
$(secret-tool lookup id chromium.client.id)"
export GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_SECRET="\
$(secret-tool lookup id chromium.client.secret)"
export CHROMIUM_FLAGS="\
--enable-features=VaapiVideoDecoder,WebUIDarkMode \
--force-dark-mode"
/usr/bin/chromium-freeworld ${CHROMIUM_FLAGS} "${@}"
EOF
chmod +x ~/.local/bin/*

# Configure desktop launcher
desktop-file-install \
--dir=${HOME}/.local/share/applications \
--set-key=Exec \
--set-value="chromium-freeworld %U" \
/usr/share/applications/chromium-freeworld.desktop
5 Likes

True … but Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome are all built on GPL Chromium with Blink rendering engine. Apart from GPL ‘free’ nonsense, corporate users depend on e-commerce revenues so …

I’m afraid we cannot affect the corporate policy for accessing their services.
To get more independence, you should rely on standalone or self-hosted solutions.

Or use Firefox Sync, which works as well between mobile and desktop Firefox.

Microsoft ecosystem on Linux and Android syncs perfectly between mobile and desktop devices, comparable experience with Google … using Chromium on laptop device I have both ecosystems in parallel right on my fingertips, something special as Microsoft and Alphabet LLC (Google) apps shuts the door partially for reasons that I could understand.
My question is about Chromium specific identification signing … my Google and Microsoft accounts are valid, used for e-mail and ecosystems services. I also have a Red Hat desktop with valid account but they advise to use always green browser leading to Chrome, Edge both directly connected to Chromium browser … why? … a bit lost navigating between Microsoft Azure and IBM Cloud cognitif services … Am I an alien?

They’re paying for server infrastructure used for data synchronisation (Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and others have their own solutions) and Google decided it will no longer provide this access to people that don’t use Chrome (which lets Google collect monetizable data). That move affected Chromium, Brave and others, but not those who had their own sync infrastructure (Edge is another Chromium based browser, but with own sync system).
Since then Brave implemented their own solution and in Chromium everyone can use their own API keys to re-enable synchronisation, like @vgaetera wrote.

Chrome’s rendering engine (Blink, a WebKit fork) became dominant and some websites are made (or tested) only with it in mind, like in bad, Internet Explorer times.

So the answer to all the “Why?” questions is… yep, :dollar:

1 Like

Thank you all … good answers …

You’re welcome.
P.S. Vladislav’s first answer deserves to be marked as the solution.

1 Like

this is not working under F35 :

secret-tool clear id chromium.client.id

causes : Segmentation fault (core dumped)