ungoogled-chromium-windows

Windows packaging for ungoogled-chromium.

Downloads

Download binaries from the Contributor Binaries website.

Or install using winget install --id=eloston.ungoogled-chromium -e.

Source Code: It is recommended to use a tag via git checkout (see building instructions below). You may also use master, but it is for development and may not be stable.

Building

Google only supports Windows 10 x64 or newer. These instructions are tested on Windows 10 Pro x64.

NOTE: The default configuration will build 64-bit binaries for maximum security (TODO: Link some explanation). This can be changed to 32-bit by setting target_cpu to "x86" in flags.windows.gn.

Setting up the build environment

IMPORTANT: Please setup only what is referenced below. Do NOT setup other Chromium compilation tools like depot_tools, since we have a custom build process which avoids using Google's pre-built binaries.

Setting up Visual Studio

Follow the "Visual Studio" section of the official Windows build instructions.

• Make sure to read through the entire section and install/configure all the required components.
• If your Visual Studio is installed in a directory other than the default, you'll need to set a few environment variables to point the toolchains to your installation path. (Copied from instructions for Electron)
  • vs2019_install = DRIVE:\path\to\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community (replace 2019 and Community with your installed versions)
  • WINDOWSSDKDIR = DRIVE:\path\to\Windows Kits\10
  • GYP_MSVS_VERSION = 2019 (replace 2019 with your installed version's year)

Other build requirements

IMPORTANT: Currently, the MAX_PATH path length restriction (which is 260 characters by default) must be lifted in for our Python build scripts. This can be lifted in Windows 10 (v1607 or newer) with the official installer for Python 3.6 or newer (you will see a button at the end of installation to do this). See Issue #345 for other methods for older Windows versions.

1. Setup the following:
   • 7-Zip
   • Python 3.6 - 3.9 or 3.10.2+ (for build and packaging scripts used below); Python 3.11 and above is not supported.
   • If you don't plan on using the Microsoft Store version of Python:
     • Check "Add python.exe to PATH" before install.
     • At the end of the Python installer, click the button to lift the MAX_PATH length restriction.
     • Check that your PATH does not contain the python3 wrapper shipped by Windows, as it will only prompt you to install Python from the Microsoft Store and exit. See this question on stackoverflow.com
     • Ensure that your Python directory either has a copy of Python named "python3.exe" or a symlink linking to the Python executable.
   • Make sure to lift the MAX_PATH length restriction, either by clicking the button at the end of the Python installer or by following these instructions.
   • Git (to fetch all required ungoogled-chromium scripts)
     • During setup, make sure "Git from the command line and also from 3rd-party software" is selected. This is usually the recommended option.

Building

Run in cmd.exe (as administrator):

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-windows.git
cd ungoogled-chromium-windows
# Replace TAG_OR_BRANCH_HERE with a tag or branch name
git checkout --recurse-submodules TAG_OR_BRANCH_HERE
python3 build.py
python3 package.py

A zip archive and an installer will be created under build.

NOTE: If the build fails, you must take additional steps before re-running the build:

• If the build fails while downloading the Chromium source code (which is during build.py), it can be fixed by removing build\download_cache and re-running the build instructions.
• If the build fails at any other point during build.py, it can be fixed by removing everything under build other than build\download_cache and re-running the build instructions. This will clear out all the code used by the build, and any files generated by the build.

An efficient way to delete large amounts of files is using Remove-Item PATH -Recurse -Force. Be careful however, files deleted by that command will be permanently lost.

Developer info

First-time setup

1. Setup MSYS2
2. Run the following in a "MSYS2 MSYS" shell:

pacman -S quilt python3 vim tar
# By default, there doesn't seem to be a vi command for less, quilt edit, etc.
ln -s /usr/bin/vim /usr/bin/vi

Updating patches

IMPORTANT: Run the following in a "MSYS2 MSYS" shell:

1. Navigate to the repo path: cd /path/to/repo/ungoogled-chromium-windows
   • You can use Git Bash to determine the path to this repo
   • Or, you can find it yourself via /<drive letter>/<path with forward slashes>
2. Setup patches and shell to update patches
   1. ./devutils/update_patches.sh merge
   2. source devutils/set_quilt_vars.sh
3. Setup Chromium source
   1. mkdir -p build/{src,download_cache}
   2. ./ungoogled-chromium/utils/downloads.py retrieve -i ungoogled-chromium/downloads.ini -c build/download_cache
   3. ./ungoogled-chromium/utils/downloads.py unpack -i ungoogled-chromium/downloads.ini -c build/download_cache build/src
4. Go into the source tree: cd build/src
5. Use quilt to refresh patches. See ungoogled-chromium's docs/developing.md section "Updating patches" for more details
6. Go back to repo root: cd ../..
7. Remove all patches introduced by ungoogled-chromium: ./devutils/update_patches.sh unmerge
   • Ensure patches/series is formatted correctly, e.g. blank lines
8. Sanity checking for consistency in series file: ./devutils/check_patch_files.sh
9. Check for esbuild dependency changes in file build/src/DEPS and adapt downloads.ini accordingly
10. Use git to add changes and commit

License

See LICENSE