The current dev and beta versions of the Chromium snap removed the keys needed for sync in anticipation of the revocation in March. So it seems like this is really happening. 
Ideally, Chromium should inform users of this change when it first starts up without these keys. I really like the “deb to snap” information page. (If you have the snap installed, open file:///snap/chromium/current/firstrun/snap-en.html to see the page). Can we have a similar page for the sync issue? What would such an information page say?
My thoughts
- I think the page itself should list a recommended alternative but it should also contain a link to a community-maintained list of other alternatives.
- Given how Google f*cked us over with this decision, I’m not too keen on promoting Google Chrome as an alternative. Moreover, Google Chrome is not available on all platforms supported by Snap.
- I think it’s important to have a guide for how to export passwords and browsing data from Chromium and import it into the alternative. People who care about the sync issue will care a great deal about this data when moving to another browser. Maybe have a link to a wiki page about moving to another browser where the community can contribute guides for their favorite browsers?
- I think it makes sense to use Firefox as the recommended alternative.
- It’s in the Ubuntu archive maintained by Canonical so users can expect the same level of support.
- It’s completely open source.
- It’s also available as a Snap maintained by Mozilla themselves.