[HN Gopher] Google has turned off access to sync features for Ch...
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       Google has turned off access to sync features for Chromium
        
       Author : stsewd
       Score  : 54 points
       Date   : 2021-01-23 21:21 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (bodhi.fedoraproject.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (bodhi.fedoraproject.org)
        
       | rdiddly wrote:
       | I wonder if this is a reaction to Chromium-based Edge overtaking
       | Internet Exploder as the most popular Microsoft browser.
        
         | butz wrote:
         | Didn't Microsoft replace all Google APIs with its own
         | alternatives? This change probably will have bigger impact for
         | other browsers built on Chromium, like Brave, Opera, Vivaldi
         | etc.
        
           | cheph wrote:
           | Pretty sure Opera, Vivaldi and Brave does not sync to google
           | servers. The syncing to their servers will still work fine
           | AFAIU.
        
         | cheph wrote:
         | Pretty sure Chromium based edge does not sync to google
         | 
         | > The reasoning given for this change? Google does not want
         | users to be able to "access their personal Chrome Sync data
         | (such as bookmarks) ... with a non-Google, Chromium-based
         | browser.
         | 
         | I actually use this for having one google profile running in
         | two browsers on one computer (one with a proxy, one without).
         | 
         | Sucks quite a bit as this is the primary sync system for
         | Chromium. You can run your own but that is not quite that nice.
        
       | kowlo wrote:
       | > There is no good reason for Google to do this, other than to
       | force people to use Chrome.
       | 
       | Sounds like a good reason (for them) to me!
       | 
       | I've not used Chrome or Chromium for a while... nowadays it's
       | between Safari and Firefox for me.
        
       | coding123 wrote:
       | This is actually a good thing. People shouldn't be syncing
       | ANYTHING with google :)
        
         | andrewinardeer wrote:
         | Let people choose what to do.
        
       | bluewalt wrote:
       | Does it mean the end of browsers like Brave?
        
       | teraflop wrote:
       | Here is the discussion on the chromium-embedders mailing list:
       | https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/embedder-dev/c/NX...
       | 
       | Most interesting to me is that even though the Chrome team
       | specifically provided API keys for open-source Chromium builds to
       | use back in 2013, they are now claiming that "the Terms of
       | Service don't allow this usage, and [the previous developer]
       | didn't have authority to change the terms."
        
       | juancn wrote:
       | This makes sense from a support point of view.
       | 
       | Supporting non-standard configurations costs money (both in
       | direct and indirect ways, such as developer attention and time
       | lost triaging bugs, etc.), they don't want to spend the money on
       | it.
        
       | jsnell wrote:
       | Previously on HN:
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25801113
        
       | santoshalper wrote:
       | Man, the "don't be evil" days seem like so long ago.
        
       | etaioinshrdlu wrote:
       | Is the sync protocol documented? Can you just use an alternative
       | server of some kind?
       | 
       | Does vanilla Chromium try to sync at all now? Does it silently
       | fail, loudly fail, or just never try?
        
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       (page generated 2021-01-23 23:00 UTC)