Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
I began to investigate web extensions useable in Vivaldi and Midori. It soon became apparent that both of these web browsers were at the extremes. Vivaldi can use the Chrome Web Store, and Midori had a few native extensions. Therefore I decided to expand the number of web browsers. I will illuminate the extension-heavy and extension-light web browsers. Vivaldi, Opera, Epiphany, Qupzilla, and Midori will be reviewed.
Vivaldi is a forked project from the Opera Browser. Vivaldi does not have any native extensions, however it uses the Chrome Web Store. Therefore, all extensions that you have in your Google or Chromium Browser are compatible with Vivaldi. Simply go the Chrome Web Store and you can install any extension. Simply search and click the install button.
Opera has access to a large array of extensions, but it is not as numerous as Firefox. I could not find an adequate word processing extension. The Google Services are available to fill the word processing using Google Docs. GIMP and Pixlr are available for photo editing. The usual fill of Privacy Badger, and various VPN providers, are available in the privacy and security area. Opera has a strong productivity tab – unlike Firefox. However many of the extensions are cross referenced, possibly giving a false sense of extension numbers. Nevertheless Opera offers a nice extension array for its users.
While the browser states it is lightweight, it works well. It is not bogged down by extra weight via code. In this case Epiphany, Qupzilla and Midori do not carry extensions. There are some extensions that offer ad-blocking for these browsers. However, I do not foresee these extensions to carry extensions. They do offer some plugins for web functionality, but nothing else.
Reviewing the various browsers, it is apparent there is no middle ground for extensions, they are present or they are missing. If a person is looking for a replacement for the Chrome browser extensions, Firefox is the logical replacement. Chrome is a great tool that powers the Chrome OS. The extensions enable OS capability in Chromebooks. Remember the Chrome OS is essentially a downstream project of Chromium. We have no idea how long that open source project will continue. We must remember a Chromebook is a superuser tablet with a keyboard.
Google is developing a new operating system called Fuschia. This operating system is cited as being used in mobile devices and tablets. It is not based on any open source project, but some people are calling it an open source project. The Fuschia code is licensed under Apache 2.0, BSD Clause 3, and MIT. These 3 licenses are associated with open source projects as cited by Wikipedia. I need to credit this picture to Wikipedia.
Numerous websites and tech gurus are citing that Fuchsia is not a short-term project. There are strong reasons for Google to develop Fuchsia. It would be easier to maintain one operating system than the current two operating systems. A single operating system offers a focused development with all of its programmers. Android has numerous security holes, while Chromebooks lack the range of apps. Additionally, by using an inhouse microkernel for this new project, Google has more control over the operating system. Despite these shortcomings, Google’s OSes are dominating. Android is used in more places than Windows. The Chrome OS is now entrenched in the education realm that was Apple’s cash cow. Even Microsoft is offering a lightweight Windows 10S operating system that is a clone of Chrome OS. They say “Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.”
Over the past months, I covered every possible angle of using a Chromebook for daily office duties. And I realize these devices will only be a strong secondary laptop or a glorified tablet. It is clear that further refinement is needed in the Chrome OS to cross into the workstation status like Ubuntu or Fedora. The Chrome OS needs to offer more native apps working independently of the browser to be fully accepted by daily users. Perhaps a hybrid approach of cloud drive and locally controlled apps is needed.
This is the end of the Chrome Cult column, but a new column is coming soon.