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Is Chromium worth installing for watching videos?

balloonshark

balloonshark

Diamond Member
I've been avoiding installing Chrome but Firefox just doesn't work well or completely with sites like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, etc...

1. Will Chromium do everything that Chrome can do without all the Google crap?

2. Where can I get the official version of Chromium? I can't seem to find it on their site but I can find it places like MajorGeeks.

3. Does Chromium have any cons? Does it auto-update or have a built in updater?
 
I think this answers most of your questions:
http://www.howtogeek.com/202825/what's-the-difference-between-chromium-and-chrome/
I gave in and started using Chrome on my HTPC and might go ahead and move over from Firefox on the rest of my PC's. But I do disable the tasks it creates in the task scheduler, set its updater service to manual, and update by going to help/about. IMO Chrome's worst sin is being a little too aggressive about updating itself.
 
Thanks for the link GtB. It looks like Chromium won't work for my purposes. I guess I'll do like you and run Chrome on this new HTPC. I'll also take your advice and disable the updates because it sound like we have similar thoughts.
 
I thought that you could copy the Flash and Widevine plugins from an official Chrome install into a Chromium based one and they should work. I'm not 100% sure about Widevine (because of the DRM stuff) which is what you would need for the sites you listed but this does work for Flash. That being said just using an official Chrome install shouldn't be too painful and would probably be what I would recommend since all that stuff will be kept up to date for you (you can disable the scheduled task and set the services to manual if you don't want it updating in the background). At the very least you can likely configure it to your liking.

Keep in mind that for 1080p on Netflix you still need to use Edge or IE11 (on Windows 8+). The Netflix Windows Store application also works but I never really like it. On Chrome you're capped to 720p. Amazon has no such restriction and will play full 1080p HD on all supported HTML5 browsers. I tend to just use Edge for Netflix and Chrome for daily browsing and everything else.
 
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Glad to see DRM is still making life hard for legit users lol.

I didn't know about the 1080p playback on netflix but I'm still rockin' a 720p plasma. I also have a bandwidth cap so hopefully using a browser interface with Amazon gives me the SD option unlike my console apps.
 
Why is that? so firefox also doesn't run 1080p on netflix?

TheRyuu said:
Keep in mind that for 1080p on Netflix you still need to use Edge or IE11 (on Windows 8+). The Netflix Windows Store application also works but I never really like it. On Chrome you're capped to 720p. Amazon has no such restriction and will play full 1080p HD on all supported HTML5 browsers. I tend to just use Edge for Netflix and Chrome for daily browsing and everything else.
Click to expand...
 
Chiefcrowe said:
Why is that? so firefox also doesn't run 1080p on netflix?
Click to expand...

It has to do with the DRM implementation. Edge/IE use something different from Chrome despite both now using HTML5. At least that's the excuse that some people have given. I'm not sure if there's any other technical reason why Chrome couldn't support 1080p (I doubt it).

I'm not familiar with Firefox so I couldn't tell you what it's using (does it support HTML5 on Netflix yet?).
 
I just use the app for Netflix, but I'm on W10. The store apps don't have to take up the full screen or a half or third or whatever. I can't remember if 8.1+ does that.

I don't know if amazon prime has one, but if they do, I would just use that as well.
 
Thanks for the reply. Must have to do with DRM. I removed silverlight once Firefox supported HTML5 video on netflix. It works great and seems faster/lighter on resources.

Hmm, guess i'll try the W10 app once I get a new PC and have windows 10.


TheRyuu said:
It has to do with the DRM implementation. Edge/IE use something different from Chrome despite both now using HTML5. At least that's the excuse that some people have given. I'm not sure if there's any other technical reason why Chrome couldn't support 1080p (I doubt it).

I'm not familiar with Firefox so I couldn't tell you what it's using (does it support HTML5 on Netflix yet?).
Click to expand...
 
Chiefcrowe said:
Thanks for the reply. Must have to do with DRM. I removed silverlight once Firefox supported HTML5 video on netflix. It works great and seems faster/lighter on resources.

Hmm, guess i'll try the W10 app once I get a new PC and have windows 10.
Click to expand...

I would just use Edge and forget about the W10 app. I'm not sure how unified the user experience is now between the two but I still much prefer it in the browser. Edge has very good hardware acceleration so everything should be silky smooth. This is just my opinion but I don't really see the point of the W10 app provided that you can use Edge.
 
TheRyuu said:
I would just use Edge and forget about the W10 app. I'm not sure how unified the user experience is now between the two but I still much prefer it in the browser. Edge has very good hardware acceleration so everything should be silky smooth. This is just my opinion but I don't really see the point of the W10 app provided that you can use Edge.
Click to expand...

The flip side is that I don't see the point of using the browser if you have the app handy. The app is not a mess, it runs smooth, etc.
 
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