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nightwatch avatar Ubuntu

How do I disable a Chromium flag?

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nightwatch

I am on Ubuntu desktop 20.04 months ago, while hunting a rogue browser extension, I set the --disable-site-isolation-trials flag for my chromium-browser install.

Problem: many moons later, I cannot figure out how to remove the flag.

Troubleshooting

  • Inside chromium I reset all flags and relaunched chromium, but that had no effect
  • I checked /usr/share/applications/chromium-browser.desktop there isn't a flag setting
    ~/.local/share/applications doesn't have a chromium launcher
  • I check my bashrc and I couldn't find a flags (via alias or exported)
  • I tried export CHROMIUM_USER_FLAGS="--enable-site-isolation-trials" but it is just ignored and the browser continues warning me about --disable-site-isolation-trials

Even more weird -ish:
I ran locate chromium.desktop to find the actual launcher for my chromium

/snap/chromium/2254/bin/chromium.desktop
/snap/chromium/2254/meta/gui/chromium.desktop
/var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/chromium_chromium.desktop

and confirmed that there are zero flags set via the launcher(s).

root@machine:/snap/bin# grep "Exec=" /snap/chromium/2254/bin/chromium.desktop
Exec=chromium %U
Exec=chromium
Exec=chromium --incognito
Exec=chromium --temp-profile
root@machine:/snap/bin# grep "Exec=" /snap/chromium/2254/meta/gui/chromium.desktop
Exec=chromium %U
Exec=chromium
Exec=chromium --incognito
Exec=chromium --temp-profile
root@machine:/snap/bin# grep "Exec=" /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/chromium_chromium.desktop
Exec=env BAMF_DESKTOP_FILE_HINT=/var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/chromium_chromium.desktop /snap/bin/chromium %U
Exec=env BAMF_DESKTOP_FILE_HINT=/var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/chromium_chromium.desktop /snap/bin/chromium
Exec=env BAMF_DESKTOP_FILE_HINT=/var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/chromium_chromium.desktop /snap/bin/chromium --incognito
Exec=env BAMF_DESKTOP_FILE_HINT=/var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/chromium_chromium.desktop /snap/bin/chromium --temp-profile

from there I used the command line to reset all pf chromium's flags:

snap set chromium command.chromium=""

It seems to excute successfully, the actual net result.. is nothing.

And when I check htop it appears /snap/chromium/2254/usr/lib/chromium-browser/chrome is being run with several flags --disable-site-isolation-trials --render-process-limit=10 --disable-feature=TFLiteLanguageDetectEnabled

stumped... where are these flags being read from?

Update:

$ sudo snap get chromium command.chromium
chromium

Also I need to correct my comment below... I just noticed that an htop filter STILL shows... /snap/chromium/2254/usr/lib/chromium-browser/chrome --disable-site-isolation-trials --render-process-limit=10 --disable-feature=TFLiteLanguageDetectEnabled... my apologies, guess I was looking at the wrong line of output..

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muru avatar
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muru
What's the output of `declare -p CHROMIUM_FLAGS`?
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nightwatch avatar
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nightwatch
I finally figured it out... when I switch my chromium from the ppa version to the snap version, chromium-common, chromium-sandbox, and another file was leftover and causing the problem... chromium snap didn't have any flags as I described... but after I finally ran "sudo apt autoremove"... the problem immediately vanished.... fyi `declare -p CHROMIUM_FLAGS` doesn't work, just get `bash: declare: CHROMIUM_FLAGS: not found`
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nightwatch avatar
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nightwatch
Spoke too soon.. I still get the warning about the flags when I start chromium... however when I check `htop` the warnings no longer appear... I am thoroughly confused again...
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Score:1
nteodosio avatar Ubuntu
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nteodosio

There are a couple of additional places where you might set Chromium flags. In order of probability:

Note that the --disable-feature=TFLiteLanguageDetectionEnabled is set by chromium.launcher itself, so the only user defined flags you need to track down are --disable-site-isolation-trials and --render-process-limit=10.

I tried export CHROMIUM_USER_FLAGS="--enable-site-isolation-trials" but it is just ignored

You made a mistake, you meant CHROMIUM_FLAGS, not CHROMIUM_USER_FLAGS.

Sidenote: You can always check out the exact command line used to invoke Chromium in about://version.

+ 2
nightwatch avatar
tr flag
nightwatch
you just made my evening.. I made a hot pot of tea ready to spend the evening purging chromium from my system... the culprit `$HOME/.chromium-browser.init` It just seems like an oversight that developers give so many ways to add flags neglect to provide a simple way to determine "where" whatever flag is coming from...the `about://version` seems like a great location to add that info.. to avoid this problem... a very maddening week... THANKS A LOT (ps, you beat chatgpt :-P )
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nteodosio avatar
tv flag
nteodosio
@nightwatch Great to hear that! Yeah, too many ways to set flags, but `.chromium-browser.init` is a legacy one (IIRC a relic from Debian). I considered dropping it (see discussion at [LP: #1514484](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chromium-browser/+bug/1514484)), but then probably many users would be upset...
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