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

[sdfox7]

@Wowfunhappy I appreciate the continued maintenance on the Chromium Legacy app. I have various machines running macOS 10.7 Lion through Big Sur (2020 MBA). I've enjoyed the usability, functionality and compatibility that Chromium Legacy provides on the older machines.

By the way, the old method (attached) for suppressing Google's obnoxious infobar to upgrade the operating system no longer works in newer versions of Google Chrome on Mac OS, and I haven't found a solution for Mac even though someone found a solution for Windows via the registry (Disable or Remove Unsupported OS Warning in Chrome and Edge on Windows 7 and 8.1)

 

[Wowfunhappy]

@Wowfunhappy I appreciate the continued maintenance on the Chromium Legacy app. I have various machines running macOS 10.7 Lion through Big Sur (2020 MBA). I've enjoyed the usability, functionality and compatibility that Chromium Legacy provides on the older machines.

Don't thank me, I just made a little updater PrefPane! Chromium Legacy is maintained by Bluebox (who isn't a member here).

Bluebox accepts donations via Github sponsors. If you appreciate Bluebox's work, please consider donating! https://github.com/sponsors/blueboxd

 

[aurora72]

I've installed Chromium 89.0.4333.0 ( 829983.zip ) from github.com/blueboxd/chromium-legacy/releases?page=99 on my Mac OS X 10.7.5 It works quite fine except one thing: It doesn't have the regular close/minimize buttons on top left. Is this normal?

 

[wicknix]

For the early versions yes. Eventually those got fixed. Try a newer release.

 

[f54da]

@Wowfunhappy

>and modern websites often need more than just modern Javascript to work
Curious, what else is needed? I thought there haven't been any real additions to html5 since it was stabilized. Are you referring to the new css selectors?

Edit: Also as to the benefit of porting over newer chromium entirely, the reason is that if you base on older chromium and backport V8 you still maintain gpu acceleration & native ui l&f.

The more I think about it, the more I wish this existed. Of course you would not use it as a daily driver for anything risky considering that non-JS attack vectors exist, but if you are using mavericks you likely want to escape the modern insanity. And Google's vision of chrome is becoming increasingly insane, with less choice left to the user.

More practically, I honestly think just getting ES2020 null-coalescing would allow a good chunk of modern websites to work fine. This syntax is the main thing I've seen that causes newer JS sites to break on older versions, and it unfortunately cannot be polyfilled. It even prevents simple websites from stackoverflow from working (why do they need JS just to show more responses?). I do agree that it won't be a panacea for anything that makes heavy use of canvas or some exotic webcomponent stuff, but those should be much rarer than websites simply using a dash of es2020.

I think that in comparison to Skia, v8 should have a more stable surface, but worst case one could just cherrypick the changes. Well either way for now unless anyone has CPU to experiment with this it's just a pipe dream.

(Also if anyone wants to use stackoverflow on an older browser, you can pass the JS they serve through esbuild to transpile it to es6 compatible. I don't know anything about modern web build systems other than how complicated they seem, so it was good fortune to stumble upon this that could do simple single-file -> output-file transpilation).

 

[Wowfunhappy]

The more I think about it, the more I wish this existed.

...actually, something I was thinking about the other day—could you potentially build a browser plugin (or something lower-level) that just automatically pipes all incoming Javascript code through Babel.js and uses the result?

---

I do also feel that Google's approach to the web, while questionable in general, largely benefits older OSs (when they're running Chromium Legacy) by keeping my machine compatible with the modern world. Particularly when combined with the app shortcuts. (But this is also why my PrefPane changes some of Chromium's more offensive defaults.)

 

[f54da]

I don't think it can be done at browser plugin level easily, since at most you can only redirect requests to bundled web_accessible_resources on disk. (I.e. you cannot redirect a JS file to an arbitrary in-memory location). You could block the request then inject the transpiled version directly into the DOM as an inline script, but this is very ugly, bloats the DOM, probably breaks some security model somewhere, and renders ublock/umatrix ineffective.

It could easily be done at the proxy level though. Would still recommend esbuild over other things just for the speed. But you'd implement a cache anyway.

But I've been doing the non-automatic version for stackoverflow, I have a browser plugin that redirects request for JS resource to on-disk version, and I create the on-disk version by running the stackoverflow JS through esbuild. It changes rarely enough (once every 6 months or so) that it feels OK for now.

 

[wicknix]

I honestly think just getting ES2020 null-coalescing would allow a good chunk of modern websites to work fine.

Somewhat recently the Pale Moon browser had implemented this, and you are correct in that most sites began working again. (And for those not aware, they recently brought back Mac support.)

 

[MacBiter]

I don't know if it's just me, but the latest version (111) always asks for a response to 3 prompts when launched that normally only appear when a new version is installed (keychain access; location; can't remember the third...). It's not a major hassle, but it is irritating.

 

[Jack Neill]

I don't know if it's just me, but the latest version (111) always asks for a response to 3 prompts when launched that normally only appear when a new version is installed (keychain access; location; can't remember the third...). It's not a major hassle, but it is irritating.

Ive had the same thing with 111 on my Air 5,2 running 10.9.5

 

[MacBiter]

Should I revert to the previous release to stop the "3 prompts"?.

 

[MacBiter]

Should I revert to the previous release to stop the "3 prompts"?.

Unfortunately it is still there back in version 110 .

 

[MacBiter]

Hello, is anyone home?

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Hi, the honest answer is I don't know. I only get two of the three prompts, and I've been getting them for a very long time, so I don't know what changed.

They aren't a significant issue for me because Chromium is one of the only applications I almost always leave running in the background, so I rarely restart the app.

 

[PowerHarryG4]

That issue happened to me a couple weeks ago and it's now gone for me. I'm not sure exactly what I did to fix it. I did have a separate issue which I was trying to fix, and in doing so it seems to have solved this issue, but I can't guarantee this would work.

I had a certificate problem, so I removed all of my certificates from keychain to start from scratch. I also logged out of Icloud and and deleted all the info and then logged back in. I also haven't setup my Keychain in Icloud, which may be doing something. I completely deleted and reinstalled chromium-legacy too. Again I don't know if this was the thing that solved the issue, but if it really bothers you it may be worth a try.

 

[bookemdano]

My issue with this a few weeks ago (installing via @Wowfunhappy 's prefpane) was that cookies were not being set. Like I would pull up a site and log into it (clicking the checkbox to stay logged in). But after quitting and re-opening Chromium I'd have to log back in every time. This was with absolutely no change of the settings in Chromium, no login to a Google account, no extensions. A completely stock install. It was acting as if I was in Incognito mode, but I was not.

I tried to mitigate this somewhat by saving the passwords using the built-in password manager, but that seemed to be disabled and/or broken as well. It never popped up to offer to save anything, and if I tried to save a password manually in the password manager settings it never actually saved.

This was on a MacMini2,1 running fully up-to-date Lion (10.7.5). Very vanilla installation--in fact I tried completely erasing the system disk and reinstalling Lion from scratch. Chromium Legacy was the very first app in installed, and the same problems occurred.

If I instead install Chromium legacy manually from the github page, neither of these problems occur (i.e. cookies work, as does the native password manager), so I have to assume the problem relates to the customization performed by @Wowfunhappy 's installer. I did search this thread and the discussion over at the github and couldn't find any mention of these issues, though. So maybe it's something unique to this model (or to Lion, which is probably not being used much by other people these days--it's the last supported OS for MacMini2,1 though).

Happy to test anything if you have any ideas for fixing this. I'd prefer to use the prefpane method since it allows easier updates.

 

[MacBiter]

Hi, the honest answer is I don't know. I only get two of the three prompts, and I've been getting them for a very long time, so I don't know what changed.

They aren't a significant issue for me because Chromium is one of the only applications I almost always leave running in the background, so I rarely restart the app.

Yeah, I leave it running all day too, so it's only a once-a-day thing - as I say, no big deal, just a minor irritation
.

That issue happened to me a couple weeks ago and it's now gone for me. I'm not sure exactly what I did to fix it. I did have a separate issue which I was trying to fix, and in doing so it seems to have solved this issue, but I can't guarantee this would work.

I had a certificate problem, so I removed all of my certificates from keychain to start from scratch. I also logged out of Icloud and and deleted all the info and then logged back in. I also haven't setup my Keychain in Icloud, which may be doing something. I completely deleted and reinstalled chromium-legacy too. Again I don't know if this was the thing that solved the issue, but if it really bothers you it may be worth a try.

It doesn't bother me nearly enough to go through all that!.

 

[PowerHarryG4]

I just downloaded the new version of chromium-legacy with the downloader and it asked me to install the ISRG Root X1 Certificate. Once I did this the two pop ups with "chromium would like to use your location" and "Chromium wants to use your confidential information..." came up. So I guess that's why I wasn't getting the pop up after I cleared my certificates.

 

[MacBiter]

I just downloaded the new version of chromium-legacy with the downloader and it asked me to install the ISRG Root X1 Certificate. Once I did this the two pop ups with "chromium would like to use your location" and "Chromium wants to use your confidential information..." came up. So I guess that's why I wasn't getting the pop up after I cleared my certificates.

Yeah, those are the first two. The third is "Do you want the application “_Chromium” to accept incoming network connections?" (yet Chromium is already listed in Firewall to accept them).

 

[MacBiter]

I've been running Chromium 111 for quite a while so I decided to upgrade to the latest stable build (114). Unfortunately I got a 'Download failed...' message for the first time ever, and the same happened whatever build I chose.

Is there anything I should know?

ETA I downloaded v114 direct from Github and it's running ok.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I've been running Chromium 111 for quite a while so I decided to upgrade to the latest stable build (114). Unfortunately I got a 'Download failed...' message for the first time ever, and the same happened whatever build I chose.

Is there anything I should know?.

Please redownload the Preference Pane to get the latest version, then try again, it should work this time! I had to change something for recent builds.

 

[MacBiter]

Please redownload the Preference Pane to get the latest version, then try again, it should work this time! I had to change something for recent builds.

I did download v114 from github, but have you the link to your Preference pane so I can get the latest?.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I did download v114 from github, but have you the link to your Preference pane so I can get the latest?.

Sorry, it's in the first post: https://jonathanalland.com/downloads/chromium-legacy-downloader.dmg

 

[Mahzim]

Hello, how to save my logins? Not passwords, but logins. Every new time I open it I have to login again to my accounts. Thanks!

 

[MacBiter]

Hello, how to save my logins? Not passwords, but logins. Every new time I open it I have to login again to my accounts. Thanks!

Are you saving your usernames and passwords when asked by Chromium? And are you having it open where you left off last time, with windows and tabs saved?.