Other Chromium Legacy: Google Chrome for OS X 10.7 – 10.9

[MacBiter]

Which brings me back to Chrome.

For those of you who have a good grasp on the mechanics underneath, what was the breaking point which kept Chrome (or Chromium Legacy), post-49, from running on an all-64-bit system running 10.6.8, but able to run on 10.7, 10.8 and even 10.9? Was it in a set of frameworks introduced with Lion?

Again, there may already be a really good write-up on this elsewhere and I haven’t yet found it.

According to this website:

Chrome abandons XP, Vista and older versions of OS X

Google released Chrome 50, and as promised last year, dropped support for Windows XP and Vista, along with three older editions of Apple's OS X.

www.computerworld.com

Chrome 50 ended support for not only Snow Leopard but also 10.7 and 10.8. I know Mavericks brought in a whole new method of memory management so could that be the reason?

 

[B S Magnet]

According to this website:

Chrome abandons XP, Vista and older versions of OS X

Google released Chrome 50, and as promised last year, dropped support for Windows XP and Vista, along with three older editions of Apple's OS X.

www.computerworld.com

Chrome 50 ended support for not only Snow Leopard but also 10.7 and 10.8. I know Mavericks brought in a whole new method of memory management so could that be the reason?

Yeah. As with other references, this article doesn’t describe the mechanics of why Snow Leopard was no longer possible with Chrome’s direction.

 

[MacBiter]

Yeah. As with other references, this article doesn’t describe the mechanics of why Snow Leopard was no longer possible with Chrome’s direction.

You're assuming:
1. Google released the technical details of why,
and / or
2. the article's readers were either able to understand or wanted to know.
Even if the details were given, they'd simply have been non-specific generalities merely hinting at the precise reasons?

 

[B S Magnet]

You're assuming:
1. Google released the technical details of why,
and / or
2. the article's readers were either able to understand or wanted to know.
Even if the details were given, they'd simply have been non-specific generalities merely hinting at the precise reasons?

No. What I’m asking — or trying to suss — is: what area is technically preventing a build of Chromium or Chrome from source to compile successfully in a Snow Leopard environment? Maybe this is a question which someone like Bluebox may be able to answer, I don’t know.

 

[MacBiter]

Yes, that would be useful. In my Snow Leopard VM Safari and Firefox are extensively hobbled.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Yeah. As with other references, this article doesn’t describe the mechanics of why Snow Leopard was no longer possible with Chrome’s direction.

No, but read between the lines a bit here:

• Chromium Legacy tracks upstream Chromium relatively closely.
  • No major architectural rework is required to make Chromium support down to Lion. Google just didn't care and wanted to simplify their codebase.
• Google dropped Snow Leopard, Lion, and Mountain Lion at the same time
  • Snow Leopard was probably dropped for the same reason as Lion and Mountain Lion.
• The developer of Chromium Legacy runs Lion.
  • He probably decided to stop at the version he uses personally, which is perfectly reasonable in an unpaid personal project.

So, I suspect the reason is there is no reason! Google just couldn't be bothered. A developer of sufficient experience and motivation could probably create a pull request for Chromium Legacy which adds Snow Leopard support.

Not to overstate my roll here, because Bluebox wrote the actual fix and because adding forwards-compatibility is generally easier than back-porting—but the reason Chromium Legacy works on Mavericks today is because I spent many weekends figuring out why it used to crash at startup on that OS. Once I'd tracked down the cause, Bluebox was able to push a fix.

(Notably, this is a different situation than Firefox, which has a hard requirement on Lion because it uses Rust.)

 

[B S Magnet]

No, but read between the lines a bit here:

• Chromium Legacy tracks upstream Chromium relatively closely.
  • No major architectural rework is required to make Chromium support down to Lion. Google just didn't care and wanted to simplify their codebase.
• Google dropped Snow Leopard, Lion, and Mountain Lion at the same time
  • Snow Leopard was probably dropped for the same reason as Lion and Mountain Lion.
• The developer of Chromium Legacy runs Lion.
  • He probably decided to stop at the version he uses personally, which is perfectly reasonable for an unpaid personal project.

So, I suspect the reason is there is no reason! Google just couldn't be bothered. A developer of sufficient experience and motivation could probably create a pull request for Chromium Legacy which adds Snow Leopard support.

Not to overstate my roll here, because Bluebox wrote the actual fix and because adding forwards-compatibility is generally easier than back-porting—but the reason Chromium Legacy works on Mavericks today is because I spent many weekends figuring out why it used to crash at startup. Once I'd tracked down the cause, Bluebox was able to push a fix.

(Notably, this is a different situation than Firefox, which has a hard requirement on Lion because it uses Rust.)

This is an instructive reply. Thank you.

[As a sidebar: the factor which nudged me toward returning and staying with Mozilla-based browsers, back in 2016–17, was Chromium/Chrome dropping support for 10.6–10.8 simultaneously. My early 2011 MBP daily driver remained at 10.6.8, which meant dusting off the final months of continued Firefox support before moving over to TenSixFox and TenFourFox for Intel. It would be interesting to find a way to build an ungoogled Chromium binary which would work on 10.6.8 — particularly for those situations in which only a Chrome-based browser is supported.]

 

[MacBiter]

This is an instructive reply. Thank you.

[As a sidebar: the factor which nudged me toward returning and staying with Mozilla-based browsers, back in 2016–17, was Chromium/Chrome dropping support for 10.6–10.8 simultaneously. My early 2011 MBP daily driver remained at 10.6.8, which meant dusting off the final months of continued Firefox support before moving over to TenSixFox and TenFourFox for Intel. It would be interesting to find a way to build an ungoogled Chromium binary which would work on 10.6.8 — particularly for those situations in which only a Chrome-based browser is supported.]

I've downloaded TenSixFox (didn't know they'd upgraded TenFourFox for Intel !) and will see if it works ok in my 10.6.8 VM.

 

[B S Magnet]

I've downloaded TenSixFox (didn't know they'd upgraded TenFourFox for Intel !) and will see if it works ok in my 10.6.8 VM.

Despite the name, TenFourFox for Intel is current (FPR32) while TenSixFox, which was a one-off thing, is a few years out of date (insofar as security patches go).

 

[MacBiter]

have I downloaded the wrong one?

 

[B S Magnet]

have I downloaded the wrong one?

I don’t know!

But have a look at this WikiPost.

 

[MacBiter]

I don’t know!

But have a look at this WikiPost.

Excellent! I'll keep that tab open for reference.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

If anyone is using my downloader, you may want to, er, re-download the downloader. I added an "Update" option to Chromium's menu bar, so you can download versions without going into System Preferences each time.

The Preference Pane is still an option, as a backstop in case a Chromium build is broken and can't be opened. You will also need to download via System Preferences the first time.

I'd be curious to hear opinions about whether Update should stay its own item in the menu bar, or if it should be moved under the Chromium menu. I went back and fourth on this—it feels a bit in-your-face right now, but that could be a good thing, so I don't forget to install updates periodically.

 

[MacBiter]

If anyone is using my downloader, you may want to, er, re-download the downloader. I added an "Update" option to Chromium's menu bar, so you can download versions without going into System Preferences each time.

View attachment 1813469
The Preference Pane is still an option, as a backstop in case a Chromium build is broken and can't be opened. You will also need to download via System Preferences the first time.

I'd be curious to hear opinions about whether Update should stay its own item in the menu bar, or if it should be moved under the Chromium menu. I went back and fourth on this—it feels a bit in-your-face right now, but that could be a good thing, so I don't forget to install updates periodically.

Hi

You haven't included the link for downloading the downloader?

 

[wicknix]

Neither is a bad idea, but i personally prefer the pref pane. Can you hide the update menu item in say the help menu, or the chromium menu by chance?

You haven't included the link for downloading the downloader?

https://jonathanalland.com/downloads/chromium-legacy-downloader.dmg
First post has the link.

Cheers.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Neither is a bad idea, but i personally prefer the pref pane. Can you hide the update menu item in say the help menu, or the chromium menu by chance?

Yeah, I can move it wherever. As I said in my last post, I was conflicted about whether it should go under the Chromium menu or be its own item. Thanks for the vote to move.

I just don’t want people to forget to update (including me), since the updater will never activate automatically, and I really do think it’s important for security. Web browsers aren’t like other software, they touch far too much untrusted code...

The prefpane is still there, to be clear. It’s necessary because, since the Chromium builds are made automatically, you could end up with one that doesn’t open at all. So there needs to be a an alternate way to switch to a different build.

 

[Xde]

Everything works perfectly. Now Mavericks is 100x100 functional, if modern programs are not needed, of course :-:

Nice more apple like design, but different to the preference pane download.
Did you made this changes yourself?

 

[davigarma]

Bonito diseño más parecido a una manzana, pero diferente a la descarga del panel de preferencias.
¿Hiciste estos cambios tú mismo?

Yes. The solution provided by the excellent developers who write on this forum has made Mavericks fully usable. Now I have Mavericks disconnected, but the solutions also work for Yosemite. See the Chromium "updater" I use in Yosemite from Mr. Jonathan

 

[davigarma]

I have also discovered that for Safari 10 to work fully without the annoying "safari cannot open the page due to lack of secure connection" a proxy with a valid digital certificate is not necessary. I have found that AdGuard does that function and Safari 10 connects on all pages. I prefer it because it also protects against malware, spam, advertising and other attacks

Greetings to all

 

[Heindijs]

If anyone is using my downloader, you may want to, er, re-download the downloader. I added an "Update" option to Chromium's menu bar, so you can download versions without going into System Preferences each time.

View attachment 1813469
The Preference Pane is still an option, as a backstop in case a Chromium build is broken and can't be opened. You will also need to download via System Preferences the first time.

I'd be curious to hear opinions about whether Update should stay its own item in the menu bar, or if it should be moved under the Chromium menu. I went back and fourth on this—it feels a bit in-your-face right now, but that could be a good thing, so I don't forget to install updates periodically.

Is there a way to keep the Google Sync feature enabled? It disabled it through that ”organisation management“ feature and I can’t re-enable it now, even when going back to regular Chromium Legacy.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Is there a way to keep the Google Sync feature enabled? It disabled it through that ”organisation management“ feature and I can’t re-enable it now, even when going back to regular Chromium Legacy.

`defaults delete org.chromium.Chromium` will reset all the options for regular Chromium Legacy.

 

[Heindijs]

`defaults delete org.chromium.Chromium` will reset all the options for regular Chromium Legacy.

Thank you. Is there any way to have all of the features of your Chromium Downloader while Google Sync is still enabled?

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Thank you. Is there any way to have all of the features of your Chromium Downloader while Google Sync is still enabled?

Yes! Inside the .prefpane (show package contents), in /Contents/Resources/ there is a file called "Chromium". This is actually a shell script, you can open it in a text editor and delete stuff.

I think you should be able to delete the line:

defaults write org.chromium.Chromium SyncDisabled -bool true

to re-enable sync. Some of the settings in here are workarounds for bugs, but I'm pretty sure that one was merely privacy related.

The change will take affect when you install a Chromium build you've never installed before (or if you reboot and then reinstall any Chromium build). You may need to run defaults delete org.chromium.Chromium again!

 

[parrotgeek1]

Bluebox appears to run Lion personally, so that's probably why he chose Lion as a minimum OS for Chromium Legacy.

FWIW, Snow Leopard doesn't support thread-local storage. I'm not sure if Chromium uses it, but Rust does, and therefore any modern Rust-requiring Firefox won't work on SL. There could be another similar limitation as well.

 

[Heindijs]

Yes! Inside the .prefpane (show package contents), in /Contents/Resources/ there is a file called "Chromium". This is actually a shell script, you can open it in a text editor and delete stuff.

I think you should be able to delete the line:

defaults write org.chromium.Chromium SyncDisabled -bool true

to re-enable sync. Some of the settings in here are workarounds for bugs, but I'm pretty sure that one was merely privacy related.

The change will take affect when you install a Chromium build you've never installed before (or if you reboot and and then reinstall any Chromium build). You may need to run defaults delete org.chromium.Chromium again!

Thanks! That seems to have done the trick. Great work on your downloader