With Ubuntu having dropped Chromium from their repository and replaced it with Snap, Linux Mint (which I use) builds and ships their own flavour. They incorporate search via Yahoo (I had almost forgotten about Yahoo) as a means to make some income; no problem there.
I’m a regular user of Firefox but need to do development in a Chromium-based browser from time to time. I have…how shall I put it? started to grow a little tired of Chromium. I tend not to customise it too much; I just add uBlock Origin to it (when it was on Manifest V2) and now, uBlock Origin Lite, and that’s mostly it. My number one annoyance with Chromium and Chrome is that it is impossible to set a policy from the UI to delete everything on exit. Firefox can do it and has been able to do it for years, so what’s up, Google?
My place of employment has recently completely removed Chrome from every VDI, citing in a memo to staff the “concerning amount of security issues with [it]”. We all have to use Edge and that’s where our choice starts and ends.
I was playing around in Edge the other day and noticed that it does have a setting to delete everything on exit, à la Firefox. Hmm…if only I can run this thing at home on my Linux Mint! Oh, wait! It has been available since 2021?? I’m a bit out of touch, then!
Fast forward to today (mid-2025, roughly) and I thought I would give it a go. Chromium is just…not looking right any more. Its rendering of websites on my machine seems a little…blurry compared to the sharp-focussed Firefox. And I’ve started noticing it as well on my laptop. I’m not really sure if this is just me but I don’t really care too much about Chromium if I’m being honest.
Right-o, let’s go. Edge installed, uBlock Origin loaded (Manifest v2, of course), delete-on-exit set up and…I’m loving this. Granted, it is only day one but my, the speed in comparison to Firefox is instantly noticeable. Webpages are rendering as sharply as the old fox and I kind-of dig the vertical tabs thing. Yes, Firefox introduced those in 136 but I never bothered. Besides, I still need a decent Chromium-based browser on my Linux desktop.
This just might be it.
sudo apt purge chromium
Later, dude.