Three years to the date...
I started the free-chrome project three years ago as a public service providing a binary of Chromium for others who couldn't...
At that time Chrome had a really terrible EULA. The agreement would legally "give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and nonexclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services." (story on gizmodo). They would essentially inherit rights to anything you posted or wrote using Chrome.
When I saw the legal implications of the EULA, I decided to compile my own version of Chrome from the Chromium source code. With the huge outcry about the EULA, it occurred to me that others might want to use Chomium as well. The free-chrome project was born. Later that month Google did the right thing and changed the EULA.
I provided binaries for Chromium until version five (sometime in 2009). This was before they decided to include flash player in the Chromium build. Once they put flash in Chromium the game was up. The browser was no longer the light, nimble piece of software that I had loved. It began to take on a trend... Chromium and Chrome in general became bloatware.
I toyed with the idea of just maintaining a branch of Chromium that only implemented security patches at version five. Updates and patches flood that project however... it was and is just too much for one guy to dive into... Eventually I lost interest in even considering it and haven't been able to rekindle interest since. It's been over a year and so it is time for me to admit that i'm no longer maintaining the project. Three years to the date..
At that time Chrome had a really terrible EULA. The agreement would legally "give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and nonexclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services." (story on gizmodo). They would essentially inherit rights to anything you posted or wrote using Chrome.
When I saw the legal implications of the EULA, I decided to compile my own version of Chrome from the Chromium source code. With the huge outcry about the EULA, it occurred to me that others might want to use Chomium as well. The free-chrome project was born. Later that month Google did the right thing and changed the EULA.
I provided binaries for Chromium until version five (sometime in 2009). This was before they decided to include flash player in the Chromium build. Once they put flash in Chromium the game was up. The browser was no longer the light, nimble piece of software that I had loved. It began to take on a trend... Chromium and Chrome in general became bloatware.
I toyed with the idea of just maintaining a branch of Chromium that only implemented security patches at version five. Updates and patches flood that project however... it was and is just too much for one guy to dive into... Eventually I lost interest in even considering it and haven't been able to rekindle interest since. It's been over a year and so it is time for me to admit that i'm no longer maintaining the project. Three years to the date..
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