I bought a “Lenovo Thinkpad x1 Carbon Gen 8 i7”. I just watched “Linux Will Work For You. Time to Dump Windows 10. And Don’t Bother with Windows 11” which is a Linux Installation 101 for me. I like Brave and Firefox. I am wondering if I have to install Chrome for Linux as a basic APP. Do I have to?
No. I would install something like LibreWolf.
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Rob suggests to use Chrome ONLY for logging into the Google account if you have one.
The browser isolation method means to use different browsers for different things, for example Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp could be isolated in another browser etc
There are countless other open source browsers like the one in the previous post, most of them are based on Firefox, Brave is based on Chromium which is Chrome without the Google proprietary code.
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Hmm.. Maybe I misunderstood the question.
Yes. You could use Chrome for Google services only, to isolate them.
I thought the question was do you have to use Chrome if use Linux?
My answer to that would be don’t use Chrome at all with linux unless you are using it with Google apps.
Thank you, romluk to introduce me librewolf. net. I think I will use it instead of Firefox.
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I like YouTube. You pushed me to search: "YouTube is owned by Google and operates as a subsidiary of the company. It is considered a Google service and requires a Google account for full functionality, including personalized features like subscriptions, recommendations, playlists, and channel management. While YouTube is not branded as a Google service in its user interface, it is part of the Alphabet Inc. ecosystem, with Google being its parent company.
Although YouTube runs on Google’s infrastructure, it has been gradually migrated to Google Cloud Platform to support scalability and cloud computing initiatives. Despite this integration, YouTube maintains its distinct identity and user experience separate from other Google services.". According to what you say, I see it is OK, to watch YouTube videos on Brave without being detected, which I am delighted to know. Thank you, george!
Thank you, romluk. for your clarification. It shows that 'Chrome for Linux" is no the only saviour for internet privacy.
@loumac You’re welcome. Instead of youtube, you should use Freetube with a vpn on linux. You can import your subs or just re-add them manually.
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YouTube was a dating website acquired by Google back in 2006 or something. You can find past screenshots of it on archive.org wayback machine.
You can easily turn off the screen by opening another tab and resuming the video by the media controller swiping down the screen.
You can download easily video and audio with the YTDLnis app available only on its website as an apk for manual installation while there are many other apps like Pipepipe etc on F-droid for working more easily on the website.
I forgot that we were talking about laptop, in that case use yt-dlp on the terminal.
Archive page to save. Interesting information. Thank you, george!
You can also play YouTube streams and videos through terminal with mpv which uses yt-dlp in the background, for example I listen to lives with,
mpv --no-video 'URL'
The optional quotes around the URL are used because some terminals interpret some symbols like “?” as search wildcards.
Many other platforms work the same way like Rumble, Odysee, Bitchute, Facebook, Instagram etc
In case you get errors(mostly YouTube) you can run the yt-dlp nightly build as an executable file independently from the distribution installation, which applies the patches very early when the error appears as YouTube continually tries to block such practices.
I use FF and Chrome. I find more and more sites which simply will not work correctly with FF, especially commerce sites, and things that I simply have no choice but to use, like hospital and doctors office sites, parking and ticket sales etc. So I am forced to have both. For privacy stuff, I use TOR browser.
When Firefox has some problem I use Brave, no need for Chrome.
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Brave is based on Chromium, the open-source version of Chrome. So, in effect, you ARE using Chrome. 
But not with all the google telemetry
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Yes, I want to use all the features and the web engine of Chrome without the proprietry code of Google, on desktop I use both Chromium and Brave and the GNOME Web that uses Safari’s Webkit ported to GTK.
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I found something In the Linux Mint Software manager called FreeTube. It’s a fantastic free standing app { no browser necessary }.
You can import any and all YouTube subscriptions you have and never have to log in. The only thing you can’t do is comment, which is fine for me because I’m shadow banned there due to multiple wrongthink violations.