SrWare Iron 7.0.520.0

I'm now running Chromium 9.0.568.0 (64532). It seems a teeny bit slower than Iron but otherwise works fine. Prevx-SOL on duty of course.

My granddaughter decided to mis-apply your suggestion ("No need to change unless there's a problem") so she stayed with Iron.

 

I wouldn't mess with Iron, I spoke with Chromium developers today, they said it's just a scam and they aren't doing anything special...

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

From what I gather if you just turn everything off and it will do all the same;

http://img823.imageshack.us/f/chromeopts.png/

Also in the Options, 'Under The Hood' - Privacy - Content Settings - Location click, 'Don't allow any site to track my physical location'

Also if you didn't know there is a Chrome Stand Alone installer so you don't get that dang Google Updater, hehe

http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?standalone=1 (I'm using Chrome from this installer.)

I had problems with the installer, found out when you go to download it, just uncheck, 'Set Google Chrome as my default browser' then download it.

 

Oh dear, I've used Iron since #2 release series, it has always been a bit buggy but I always liked it.

Now I appear to have been scammed!

Mind you, it hasn't cost me anything. So I don't really mind. In fact I'm using Iron now as it works better in GMail than Chrome.

 

I did. The sources you mention are anonymous and can therefore not be considered credible from a journalistic viewpoint.

is not exacly credible, let alone verifiable either. With whom did you speak? What exactly did 'they' say?

 

The source is not completely anonymous; chromium at hybridsource.org

Also if you realized you can prove the code-sources yourself, or find someone that can. This isn't closed code, this can easily be proven, so contact the email or find yourself a Chromium developer that might be willing to prove this, in time it can be proven since it's open-source, it's not that complicated...

I didn't get names and I spoke personally with several on their IRC developer channel so at this point in time I don't see that several developers would lie about something like this.

In the mean time I'll dig more and see about getting a coder or developer on this, it's to big to let slide, so I'll see what I can do, since I have a pretty good computing background.

 

scam or not... 1 Q occupies my wicked mind - is it potentially dangerous in its attempts to look legit?

 

What are you talking about?

Also on the subject of their forum, let's look at it from the standpoint of being on this forum or any other you might be a member of. Tell me, how many forums are you on that moderate before you can post? For me, I'll tell you, only Iron's forum and I've been on forums for a little over 20 years and it's not good to moderate like this. You make rules you tell people to read them, then if they break them, you deal with them, not make them feel like children that can't be trusted to put up a post.

Look everyone is allowed to do what they want, but I'm a geek and I've been around this scene for a long, long time and moderating forums like that is just not something you see to often, so it makes me wonder even more.

Forget Iron I say, when there's a company as big as Comodo and they have a Chromium based browser too, I say go with them, because they have more credibility and are a safer bet!

http://www.comodo.com/home/browsers-toolbars/browser.php

 

Aha - so this is what your SRWare-bashing is all about. As for the notion that Comodo has 'more credibility' - well, I'll leave it to others on this forum to comment on that

 

Sometimes, we just have to be patient for things to reveal themselves

 

I agree that Comodo is probably bigger than the Iron outfit. So what? If you are basing your recommendations on size, then why not recommend IE? Surely Microsoft is bigger than Comodo & Iron combined (& then some).

Next you make the unsupported statement that Comodo is credible. Do you have any evidence or testimonials to support this assertion? Or is it just an opinion offered as dogma?

IMO turning an Iron thread into a Comodo promotion just takes my breath away, especially since Dragon is just one of MANY Webkit-based browsers.

Yes -- Webkit-based! In fact, Iron, Chrome, Chromium, Dragon, QTWeb, Safari -- and many MANY other browsers -- are ALL based on the Webkit Browser Engine (open source). (For a more complete list of Webkit-based browsers, go HERE.)

One reason for there being so many daily-new builds of Chromium is because there are a lot of daily/new builds of Webkit -- and those are just the Windows builds. There are also many daily/new Webkit builds for OS-X, Linux, etc.

Accordingly, the following are just a few of the questions that come to mind:

+ WHY center on recommending only Comodo's Webkit-based Dragon as an alternative to Iron, when there are so many other similarly based browsers that are excellent implementations of the Webkit engine? Examples include but are by NO means limited to QTWeb and Chrome+. I can't help but wonder about the motives for centering on Dragon, solely, and excluding mention of the many other excellent Webkit-based alternatives to Iron.

+ Was the series of multiple posts that harshly criticized Iron simply a thinly disguised build-up to promoting Dragon and Comodo?

+ Why was so much time spent on criticizing Iron whereas Dragon was offered as an alternative with NO supporting facts whatsoever as to its ads/disads?

+Why take the Iron thread OT in order to promote ONLY Dragon and Comodo? Why not start a thread about Comodo Dragon, if you wish to promote it?

 

"What he said".

 

If you guys are insinuating that this was all a conspiracy to promote the Comodo Chromium browser.. well then I guess you can take that up with DasFox
But really.. obviously what's focused on here is Chromium based browsers, not Webkit as a whole. As for third party Chromium browsers, afaik there's really only Srware, ChromePlus, and Comodo.

The criticisms of Iron are, in my opinion, legitimate. It may very well be a useable browser. However, the idea of it being a privacy-oriented browser needs to be debunked and that's the whole issue.

 

OK, so one more time, let me rephrase it - should we ba afraid of IRON's privacy policy or not? Which one is safer and what are the recommended settings:

Iron or Chrome?

 

IMO all the Chromium-based browsers are equally "safe," based largely on "sandboxing" each individual tab; & equally unsafe because (AFAIK) they do not provide the ability to easily allow/disallow java script on a site by site basis.

The main differences, therefore, relate to privacy matters -- namely, Chrome's propensity for:

"Calling home"
Automatically updating itself
Giving users no choices as to which files will be used by the program
"Watching" user's scanning & search habits
Creating a unique ID for each user (although claiming that user is kept anonymous)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To obtain Iron's alleged privacy advantage over Chrome, but without the issues raised here concerning Iron, then I suggest Chrome+. AFAIK, Chrome+ provides all the "safety" factors offered by Chrome AND all of the privacy factors offered by Iron AND several additional/optional bells & whistles that some folks may find useful.

 

What is known about the people behind Chrome Plus?

 

Did you miss the whole chunk of this thread showing that these alleged advantages do not exist?

 

I'm not bashing them for anything in particular actually on the contrary I wish none of what I've seen is true. I personally would love to use Iron, but there's to much going around that makes me question that project.

Yep only more time will tell and I hope it tells us a nice story, or a nice one somewhere else then...

Ok I should of said they seem more credible, not that they are more credible. I guess I said that because I personally don't see how they could be in business as long as they have without some. Also why I said what I did was if you surf the web looking for information about Comodo as a company for as long as they've been in business there isn't much negative being said.

I think you're also going overboard on this whole Dragon thing because I wasn't making a big deal out of it.

I really don't care what Chromium based browser someone uses.

Also there's a difference between being Chromium based and Webkit for your information.

Anyhow sorry if you mistook me, my intentions are not towards any browser in particular, I just happened to of brought up Dragon merely as an example for the only one Chromium sourced browser I could think of at the time.

Actually I only know of 3 Chromium sourced browsers, Iron, Dragon, Chrome Plus.

As far as Chrome Plus, given the state of China, I would not put much trust and faith in a browser coming out of China. I've only done a little research on Chrome Plus, but I will do more and see what's out there.

Anyhow let's all relax, there's no hidden agenda here, use what you like, LOL...

 

Please do. By the way, I am using Chromium 9.0.568.0 (64532). I really like it for fun surfing. (For *serious* business, I always use Firefox).

Great suggestion.

 

In the mean time check this out;

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=285870

 

I think that SRWare Iron was a genuine German company's response to the German government's own concern about Google's original privacy policies. Now Google have changed those policies somewhat in Chrome I think that it is less of an issue.

In my honest opinion, Iron is faster than Chrome (it works better for me in Yahoo! Mail), probably safer (it uses a different branch) & apart from often being a bit buggy there is actually little difference between them (Iron's internal adblocker is very good, if a bit tedious to install after each upgrade). It is nice to have a choice.

I doubt very much that SRWare Iron are a 'scam' company. They would have been shut down by the German government if that was the case or at least investigated by the European Community. It seems to me that a lot of the detractors of Iron are based in the United States & the attitude towards the European Community as a whole borders xenophobia in my opinion.

 

Right. They're so concerned about Google's privacy policies that the Iron home page come with a full serving of Google ads, and the default home page Iron serves up - and ALL the sites linked to on it - are plastered with Google ads as well. They're so concerned about Google's privacy policies that they bragged on the Chromium IRC room about how they're going to get "a lot of clicka" and a "lot of money" from Google Adsense for Iron's home page.

That depends on your definition of "scam". Are they illegal? I doubt that. Does their browser work? Yes it does. If you're satisfied by that, then all's well. But if you ask whether are they dishonest by advertising Iron as a privacy-conscious fork of Chromium when their real aim is earning money by serving Google ads, the answer is: definitely.

 

Is there some reference for that? Or is the stuff in bold it?

 

A lot of sites have Google ads, what I meant was that they offered an alternative to Chrome that originally didn't include all that Google tracking stuff like RLZ or whatever. This sounds like paranoia to me.

Oh dear me, those naughty techno-krauts want to earn a bit of dosh through advertising. Shame on them!

I think that you are confusing two distinct issues here.

 

Probably the stuff in bold ... but ... Secunia's reports on #6 are interesting (or are they in on the scam?).

Iron

Chrome

 

First of all, as has been explained numerous times, there is NO tracking stuff in Chrome. The RLZ was meant to measure the success rate of promotional campaigns to advertise Chrome as per Google's contractual obligations, not to track the user. The source code to decode this string and see exactly what it says is openly available, and if SRWare has been trying to present any deliberate misinformation about it, it's only more proof of their dishonesty.

Second, a lot of sites have Google ads. The big difference which you conveniently forget to mention is that not all of those sites claim to provide products or services as an alternative for the user to escape from Google's "nefarious" privacy policies.

Sorry, you're the one getting confused here. Earning money by exposing users to something (Google) they claim to protect from? That's dishonesty, no two ways about it. If you like their product, that's fine, but trying to justify their dishonesty and hypocrisy is a futile effort.