ungoogled-chromium-android

Please see CHANGELOG for newest updates.

A lightweight approach to removing Google web service dependency

Note: this is an Android build.

ungoogled-chromium is Google Chromium, sans dependency on Google web services. It also features some tweaks to enhance privacy, control, and transparency (almost all of which require manual activation or enabling).

ungoogled-chromium retains the default Chromium experience as closely as possible. Unlike other Chromium forks that have their own visions of a web browser, ungoogled-chromium is essentially a drop-in replacement for Chromium.

For more information on ungoogled-chromium, please visit the original repo: Eloston/ungoogled-chromium.

Differences from ungoogled-chromium

These are the differences between a Linux build of ungoogled-chromium and this Android build.

Android specific patches and fixes are applied.
Default configuration builds for arm64 instead of x64.

Limitations

The enhancements included in ungoogled-chromium are not to be considered useful for journalists, people living in countries with freedom limitations, and those who are facing government-level adversaries. Please look at tools specifically developed for these purposes, for example Tor Browser in such cases.

Platforms and Versions

Pre-built apks are named as {BUILD_TARGET}_{CPU_ARCH}.apk, where:

{BUILD_TARGET} is one of ChromePublic, MonoChromePublic, SystemWebview.
- ChromePublic is for API > 21 (Android 5.0) and only contains the browser.
- MonoChromePublic is for API > 24 (Android 7.0) and contains both the browser and the webview.
- SystemWebview is for API 21 - 23 (Android 5.0 - 6.0) and only contains the webview.
{CPU_ARCH} is one of x86, arm (armeabi-v7a), arm64 (arm64-v8a).
Please also read this important note about Webview on Android N-P.
The Bromite Wiki can also be helpful.

Building Instructions

This build is built from Sylvain Beucler's libre Android rebuilds instead of SDK/NDK binaries from Google.

Clone this repository
~~If you want to enable proprietary codecs (h264, mp3, mp4, etc.), add proprietary_codecs=true to the end of android_flags.gn.~~ It is now the default, since proprietary_codecs does not add the actual codecs, only codes to handle those file types.
enter repo directory and run ./build.sh.

Build time dependencies can be roughly referred from AUR.

For a more customized building process, see building instructions from the original repo.

Reporting and Contributing

For reporting issues and contacting, see SUPPORT
This project is still in its early stage, so contributions are welcomed.

Extensions

Note: the extension-support version is highly experimental. It is not officially a part of Ungoogled-Chromium. Only use it if you want to help testing, or you know what you are doing! I will not be responsible for any loss or damage caused.

Users coming from Kiwi Browser: the extension-support version is NOT a successor of Kiwi, nor will it have the same functionalities as Kiwi.

The extensions are likely not fully functional yet.

There are three methods to install extensions:

Method 1 (the easiest way):
1. Go to chrome://flags/ and change #extension-mime-request-handling to Always prompt for install and relaunch your browser.
2. Go to chrome webstore page
3. Switch to desktop site
4. Search for the extension you want to install and click Add to Chromium
5. The browser should prompt for installation after finishing downloading
6. Check chrome://extensions/ and you should see the extension there.
Method 2 (Direct Download):
1. Go to chrome://flags/ and change #extension-mime-request-handling to Always prompt for install and relaunch your browser.
2. Get direct link to crx file following the instructions here.
3. Paste the link into omnibox and go to that link.
4. The browser should prompt for installation after finishing downloading
5. Check chrome://extensions/ and you should see the extension there.
Method 3 (Developer Mode Folder Loading. This method only supports Android 5.1+):
1. Download extension following the instructions here.
2. Extract the crx file into a folder withunzip/7z and copy the folder to your device.
3. Notice for Android 10: as a workaround for a permission issue, you need to enable "Allow from unknown source" for `Ungoogled Chromium Extensions".
4. Make sure you also give storage access.
5. Open chrome://extensions/ and enable Developer mode, refresh.
6. Click Load unpacked and select the folder you copied. Notice that Android has two file selections, one for selecting files and one for selecting folders. Make sure you use the right one.
7. Refresh and you shall see the extension in the list.

F-droid Repository

I have set up an experimental f-droid repository. Because of the limitation of its server tools, only the arm version is hosted.

You can use f-Droid client and add this repository.

Credits

Bromite (Another build for Android. Has some own features.)

License

See LICENSE

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