Inox Browser (inox-patchset)

NOTE: This repository is no longer maintained. Please see ungoogled-chromium.

Inox patchset is applied on the chromium source code and tries to prevent data transmission to Google to get a minimal Chromium based browser. The patches are split up based on features, so it's easy to patch only a subset of them.

Table of Contents

• Foreword
• Download
• Building
  • Patches
  • Build flags
• Frequently-asked questions
  • Install extensions from Google WebStore
  • Use widevine
  • Use a proxy
  • Use firejail
  • Reduce memory footprint
• Screenshots
• Contributing
• Credits
• License
• Donations

Foreword

It is possible that some data is still transmitted (but down to a minimum) this is because Chromium is a quite large and complex codebase which changes each day.

Download

• Arch Linux: Pre-built binaries are hosted in the AUR: inox-bin

• Ubuntu, Debian, OSX, Windows: See ungoogled-chromium, it offers pre-built binaries with inox-patchset and various other patches.

Building

These patches are tested and functional on Arch Linux x86_64, but should run on any Linux/BSD distribution.

The build process takes about 3 hours on a i5-3550 CPU @ 3.90GHz and 16GB ram. (without ccache)

• Arch Linux: If you are running Arch Linux you can download and build the source from AUR: inox

• Ubuntu, Debian, OSX, Windows: See ungoogled-chromium, it offers build scripts to compile Chromium with inox-patchset and various other patches.

• Build manually: If you want to build it yourself check out the Chromium Build Instructions or view the PKGBUILD to get an idea how chromium is built.

Patches

restore-classic-ntp.patch

Restores old NTP (New Tab Page). The default NTP loads data from a web server to modify the appearance and inject a Google Search bar with a unique identifier.

add-duckduckgo-search-engine.patch

Adds DuckDuckGo as default search engine, it's still changeable in settings.

disable-default-extensions.patch

Enabled user-modification for all extensions. Disabled extensions:

• Hotword (incl. Shared Module)
• Google Now
• Google Feedback
• Cloud Print
• Google Webstore
• Network Speech synthesis
• Google Hangout

disable-autofill-download-manager.patch

Disables HTML-Form AutoFill data transmission. I don't know exactly when this is triggered, but it synchronizes the saved Form data with Google.

disable-google-url-tracker.patch

Disables URLTracker, which checks in which country you are to provide the closest google server for search lookups. I know this class has a bad naming, but nevertheless it connects to Google.

disable-google-ipv6-probes.patch

Disables ipv6 probes to Google servers. Google pings its own DNS server to check if ipv6 is available. Changed this to RIPE NCC k.root-servers.net. 2001:7fd::1 (anycasted).

disable-gcm-status-check.patch

Disables Google Cloud-Messaging status probes. GCM provides an interface to send messages directly to single devices, groups of devices, or devices subscribed to topics.

disable-missing-key-warning.patch

Disables warning dialog about missing Google API key. This key is usually set on compile time and unique per distribution. See ArchLinux chromium PKGBUILD on how it's applied or this HOWTO for an in-depth API key explanation.

Since we don't want to use these APIs at all, the keys are not set (at least for inox package on AUR).

disable-translation-lang-fetch.patch

• Disables language fetching when settings are opened for the first time
• Disables TranslateRankerQuery and TranslateRankerEnforcement (connects to chromium-i18n.appspot.com)

disable-update-pings.patch

Disables update pings to https://clients2.google.com/service/update2 which is used for component updates.

chromium-sandbox-pie.patch

Hardening the sandbox with Position Independent Code(PIE) against ROP exploits. This patch is originally from openSUSE.

disable-new-avatar-menu.patch

Disables Google's new Avatar and signin menu.

disable-first-run-behaviour.patch

Modifies the first-run behaviour to prevent data leakage.

disable-battery-status-service.patch

The W3C Battery Status API[1] has quite a laughable statement:

"The information disclosed has minimal impact on privacy or fingerprinting, and therefore is exposed without permission grants".

Along comes a paper "The leaking battery, A privacy analysis of the HTML5 Battery Status API."

Clean up after the W3C and disable the battery status updater which could be used to identity users[2].

• [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/battery-status/
• [2] https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/616.pdf

References: https://github.com/iridium-browser/iridium-browser/issues/40

modify-default-prefs.patch

Modifies following default settings (can be changed anytime):

User setting	new value
DefaultCookiesSettings	CONTENT_SETTING_DEFAULT
EnableHyperLinkAuditing	false
CloudPrintSubmitEnabled	false
NetworkPredictionEnabled	false
BackgroundModeEnabled	false
BlockThirdPartyCookies	true
AlternateErrorPagesEnabled	false
SearchSuggestEnabled	false
AutofillEnabled	false
Send feedback to Google if preferences are reset	false
BuiltInDnsClientEnabled	false
SignInPromoUserSkipped	true
SignInPromoShowOnFirstRunAllowed	false
ShowAppsShortcutInBookmarkBar	false
ShowBookmarkBar	true
PromptForDownload	true
SafeBrowsingEnabled	false
EnableTranslate	false
LocalDiscoveryNotificationsEnabled	false

branding.patch

s/Chromium/Inox/g

Build flags

The PKGBUILD uses chromium GN build system. The following config flags are applied:

Feature	Build config
Disable google now	enable_google_now=false
Disable WebRTC	enable_webrtc=false
Disable Remote service	enable_remoting=false
Disable safe browsing	safe_browsing_mode=0*
Disable RLZ Identifier	enable_rlz=false, enable_rlz_support=false
Disable google hangouts	enable_hangout_services_extension=false
Disable print preview	enable_print_preview=false

* Builds only with fix-building-without-safebrowsing.patch.

Frequently-asked questions

Install extensions from Google WebStore

Since there is no WebStore plugin, you cannot install extensions directly from the store, but there are two options to install an extension.

Keep in mind extensions are not updated automatically, so make sure you update them on a regular base.

• Extension downloader

  The most convenient way is via the extension downloader inoxunpack, it's a small python script to download and unpack extensions from Google WebStore.

  Example usages:

  $ inoxunpack ublock-origin
  $ inoxunpack cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm
  

  Both of the commands will download but not install ublock origin. After executing you will se an instruction how to install the extension in developer mode. See inoxunpack for more details.

• Download manually

  https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx?response=redirect&os=linux&prodversion=55.0.2883.87&x=id%3D[EXTENSION_ID]%26installsource%3Dondemand%26uc

  To download a extension just replace [EXTENSION_ID] with the extension-id from the WebStore (For example cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm is the extension id of uBlock Origin).

Drag and Drop

Open chrome://extensions and drop the file from the download bar into the extensions tab. Note: Under some circumstances this method does not work on KDE Plasma.

Preferences File

Alternatively you can also install the extension via a preferences file.

For example to install the extension cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm create a file called: /usr/share/inox/extensions/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeagm.json with following content:

{
    "external_crx": "/path/to/extension/extension_1_0_0.crx",
    "external_version": "1.0.0"
}

If you restart Inox the extension should be loaded automatically. For more details go here.

Use widevine

Though it might not be ideal to use DRM technologies, Inox supports widevine if you provide libwidevinecdm.so. To activate it, create a symlink from a chromium setup.

# ln -s /usr/lib/chromium/libwidevinecdm.so /usr/lib/inox/libwidevinecdm.so

Use a proxy

As mentioned in Foreword it is still possible that some data is leaked to Google, so use if want to use a proxy to achieve a high level of anonymity it would be better to use TorBrowser.

The --proxy-server flag supports HTTP, HTTPS and SOCKS proxies. The --host-resolver-rules flag forces DNS requests through the proxy (prevents DNS leakage), the EXCLUDE option lets Inox resolve the domain name.

Examples

Tor

inox --proxy-server="socks5://localhost:9050" --host-resolver-rules="MAP * 0.0.0.0, EXCLUDE localhost, EXCLUDE *.local"

I2P

inox --proxy-server="http://127.0.0.1:4444" --host-resolver-rules="MAP * 0.0.0.0, EXCLUDE localhost, EXCLUDE *.local"

Use firejail

Firejail is a SUID program that reduces the risk of security breaches by restricting the running environment of untrusted applications using Linux namespaces and seccomp-bpf. It supports Inox out of the box, you just need to run inox with firejail: firejail inox.

Reduce memory footprint

Enabling process per site

By default Chrom* heavily isolates each tab regardless of it's domain. While doing this arguably improves security by some extent, downside is that as number of tabs increase, the RAM bloat due to duplication reaches absurd levels. This can end up with Chrom* using >4.5GB of RAM on a machine with 8GB thus preventing other heavy programs from running at the same time. This can be fixed by making Chrom* use one process per site/domain and not per tab. This greatly reduces RAM bloat while (probably) not sacrificing much from security. Use the following command-line argument: inox --process-per-site

For more details go here.

Screenshots

Here you can find more screenshots.

Contributing

Use the Issue Tracker for problems, suggestions, and questions, or visit the Inox Browser thread in the Arch forums.

You may also contribute by submitting pull requests.

Credits

• Chromium
• Iridium Browser
• ungoogled-chromium

License

GPLv3. See LICENSE

Donations

Donations are welcome and keep me motivated :-)

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