What's your experience with SRware Iron?

Are they trustworthy? Has someone examined the modifications they made to the Chromium source code? I only know of them because of the configurations in Sandboxie. And, I read articles that talked negatively about them from other Chromium developers.

I use their portable version but the speed difference among the other browsers, Safari, Opera, and such were not noticeable.

Lastly, in terms of speed, are Chrome, Chromium and SRware Iron the same?

 

As one who resisted being incorporated into the google borg, I tried Iron back when spying by google was actually something I cared about. It worked fine I suppose. I tried chrome and chromium next. I ended up staying with Chromium, but I would not hesitate to use Chrome, simply for the auto updater.

Stability wise, I have had no issues with any of them, although I have seen numerous people mention Iron usually has a few glitches, but that may have been some time ago now.

Speed wise, I think Chromium itself is the fastest, but that is not something one can properly quantify except on ones own machine, based upon your hardware, your connection, your OS settings, where you browse to normally, and most importantly, what you think "speed" is and how your own eyes measure it.

Sul.

 

I've been using Iron on & off from about version #2 (I only used Chrome when Google stopped a lot of their tracking). It can occasionally have a few bugs, Chrome is more stable in that respect, but I find that it is in the main OK. The present release is fine, however I do find that some of the experimental 'about:flags' are less stable than Chrome.

 

Why does the issue of trust arise? In what particular context?
If this is properly defined, it would be easier to answer.

I don't "trust" SRware Iron because

• very, very little information is available about it or the folks who are responsible for it
• the claims made about the browser being superior to Chrome in terms of speed, stability or security are hard to understand since they are not properly documented. At least in the case of Chrome/Chromium, one can visit sites such as http://code.google.com
• SRware Iron doesn't (AFAIK) incorporate Flash or PDF Reader
• if one doesn't log in to a Google service and if one cleans up after browsing, what is there to worry about tracking?
• Chrome is in the cross-hairs of analysts. I'm not sure that much attention is given to SRware Iron.
• a benefit of SRware Iron is allegedly its ad/content blocker. I've asked (quite sincerely) to know how this works but I haven't found an answer. Ad blockers for Chrome have their own forums or are actively discussed in forums.

 

AFAIK it works on the same principle as Opera's internal content blocker & most people use Fanboy's list.

 

Thanks! In that case, I'm not sure that the built-in ad blocker provides any advantage over Chrome ever since AdBlock Plus for Chrome became available.

 

Yeah, I've often wondered whether it's any better, it does seem to catch some adverts that ABP misses though. I actually use both on Iron, that may be seen as a bit of overkill though.

 

Have you posted examples of these on the AdBlock Plus forum?

I find it hard to understand that the same list provides different results.

 

It's not on many sites & not often. The Firefox version of ABP doesn't suffer from this.

 

One thing that I'm concerned about is the unique ID in Chrome. If someone figures out your ID along with your MAC id, it can get really ugly real quicky...if you can imagine the possibilities with Google search and Gmail among other things. The SRWare Iron gets rid of this. Although I'm not really tech savvy, how about Chromium?

 

Let's flip this around. If the unique ID was such a big issue and if using Iron is the solution, shouldn't it be reflected in the browser share numbers (if they're to be trusted at all)?

And, while it's good to imagine things I wouldn't let my imagination lead me to use a browser I know very little about. Rather, I'd focus on getting more tech savvy so that I can understand whether what I'm doing on the 'net (with any browser) jeopardizes my safety in any way.

Please note that my bias isn't against Iron alone. I stay away from all secondary or derivative browsers despite claims of superior performance or features. There are quite a few:
Palemoon & Epic (instead of Firefox)
ChromePlus, Comodo Dragon, Iron (instead of Chrome)
BlackHawk (which claims to have the best of both Chrome and Firefox)
I've ignored the social browsers.

 

Correct.
Chrome NaCl couldn't have been there (SRWare Iron), too.

Agreed.

 

Does Iron's ad blocker actually block content from being downloaded to the hard drive or does it merely hide ads from the browser window like the Chrome add-ons?

 

I don't quite follow what you mean by "the Chrome add-ons", but if you are referring to AdBlock Plus for Chrome, you can clear your doubts at the forum. The level of help is excellent.

 

Yes, I was referring to Adblock Plus, Adblock, Adthwart, Adsweep, etc. Thanks for the forum link.

It looks like Adblock Plus can block some content (ads) from being downloaded to the computer but not all as it does in Firefox. The content that is downloaded to your computer is hidden in the browser.

It's not really a big issue but with a miniscule bandwidth allowance every bit helps.

Still undetermined (by me) if Iron's adblock works by blocking or hiding.

 

If you're like me with a limited bandwidth allowance, you should also consider something like Privoxy which can be set up to block download irrespective of which browser you use. Set it up once and it can be used for all the major browsers.

I'm sorry I can't answer your question about Iron.

 

What has that to do with trust?

Blocking.

 

Is that stated upfront? While claiming to be the equivalent of Chrome except for privacy issues?

 

http://chromium.hybridsource.org/the-iron-scam

Simply stated, Iron is not as different compared to Chromium/Chrome as they try to suggest.

Even when you look at their comparison table, you see they state items that are misleading or simply not an issue at all.

http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iron.php

Suggest
Alternate Error Pages
Error Reporting

are all simple options you can enable/disable in the preferences whether you want the functionality or not.

RLZ-Tracking does not even exist in official Chrome builds, only promotional builds.

URL-Tracker - as explained by a Chromium developer below

http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2009/12/iron.html

So it's up to you to decide which product is more trustworthy. I'd say if you want to find a middle ground then go for a Chromium build.

 

But what about the "ad blocker"? Where did that come from? That doesn't seem to originate from Chromium. If it's as effective as people seem to imply, why are there no extensions for Chrome that do the same?

And, from all accounts, both Palant (AdBlock Plus for Chrome) and Gundlach (AdBlock for Chrome) haven't been able to make their add-ons as effective as the Iron blocker is supposed to be. I wonder why.

 

I was speaking in terms of what they did in terms of privacy since that was their main selling point for the browser. Even then, I'd say it's really the only "real" addition they included into Iron.

What they seem to have done for the adblock function was to incorporate a urlfilter in the way Opera did theirs. A function like that would be a direct modification of the source code. The difference being is that the Chromium extension API isn't complete in terms of resource blocking. Therefore, extensions don't have the proper "rights" for blocking some elements.

 

Got it. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

I have no experience building software.

My laptop has a 1.4 dual core processor with 1GB of ram. How long will it take me to compile the Chromium source code, assuming I learn how to do?

Does Chromium have the unique ID that is found in Chrome?

Do you know if Chrome still has the unique ID? If so, can it be removed?

 

Chromium does not have the Google UniqueID

Chrome wipes the ID after the first update.

Chromium compiled builds can be grabbed via their snapshots here
http://build.chromium.org/f/chromium/snapshots/

 

[ ] REVISIONS 15-Jun-2011 14:56 72
[ ] changelog.xml 15-Jun-2011 14:56 2.2K
[ ] chrome-win32-syms.zip 15-Jun-2011 14:56 79M
[DIR] chrome-win32.test/ 15-Jun-2011 14:57 -
[ ] chrome-win32.zip 15-Jun-2011 14:56 31M
[ ] devtools_frontend.zip 15-Jun-2011 14:57 791K
[ ] mini_installer.exe


Lots of options. What's the difference between chrome-win32-syms and chrome-win32?

And who compiled these builds?