Recently, in the IGEL Community, Leon Beitsch, IGEL Community VIP, released a white paper detailing how to configure IGEL OS with Chromium. This is a hot topic, and Leon does a great job sharing the fine details on installing and configuring Chromium with IGEL OS.
Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Chris Feeney
Co-host: Patrick Toner
Recently, in the IGEL Community, Leon Beitsch, IGEL Community VIP, released a white paper detailing how to configure IGEL OS with Chromium. This is a hot topic, and Leon does a great job sharing the fine details on installing and configuring Chromium with IGEL OS.
Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Chris Feeney
Co-host: Patrick Toner
WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:01.110
Andy Whiteside: one.
2
00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:12.090
Andy Whiteside: That everyone and welcome to episode 57 of I Joe weekly i'm your host Andy whiteside i've got Patrick toner with me on this INTEGRA side, Patrick how's it going.
3
00:00:12.780 --> 00:00:25.500
Patrick Toner: anywhere you don't go and good you know just getting settled in down here in Florida enjoying the daily thunderstorms a little bit different from where i'm from but that doing well doing well, good glad to be here.
4
00:00:26.130 --> 00:00:30.930
Andy Whiteside: Have you got involved in the citrix user group in jacksonville yet i'm gonna bug.
5
00:00:31.830 --> 00:00:43.320
Patrick Toner: yeah, no, no, not outside of just sending messages, so I plan to attend the next you know few events here just get really plugged in definitely excited to get a get involved there yeah.
6
00:00:43.710 --> 00:00:53.190
Andy Whiteside: Well, I think that would welcome you as a leader, because they can they can always have more leaders and i'm gonna i'm gonna get involved in the Charlotte one all over again it's its fledgling.
7
00:00:54.360 --> 00:01:09.360
Andy Whiteside: And I know brad Swazi on a team who just joined this is going to do the Atlanta one as well, so just get involved, trying to help trying to help the Community, just like unfortunately citrix doesn't have the power of the eye gel Community they totally set it up incorrectly, in my opinion.
8
00:01:10.710 --> 00:01:13.110
Andy Whiteside: All right, Chris finis with us from Idaho Chris how's it going.
9
00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:22.410
Chris Feeney: it's going great i'm feeling a little refresh this week short week but ready to rock and roll so.
10
00:01:22.470 --> 00:01:24.630
Andy Whiteside: What what city is that you have in your background.
11
00:01:25.020 --> 00:01:25.980
Chris Feeney: No idea.
12
00:01:26.280 --> 00:01:30.210
Chris Feeney: Okay honestly it's a corporate background that.
13
00:01:31.290 --> 00:01:45.390
Chris Feeney: I Joe corporate it has put into zoom so to me represents the fact that I don't have to commute into the office into the big downtown office or somewhere, I can actually work from anywhere, including this this location where I get a nice view of the city.
14
00:01:46.440 --> 00:01:55.260
Andy Whiteside: We were mucking around I was before we got on this call doing some zoom testing on my side i've been playing with teams and vdi and I gel the last few days.
15
00:01:56.940 --> 00:02:03.960
Andy Whiteside: So zoom virtual backgrounds work in the vdi version of zoom correct.
16
00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:06.180
Chris Feeney: yeah I think I want to say.
17
00:02:07.980 --> 00:02:22.140
Chris Feeney: For the listeners, we did a podcast on that there's a there's some instructions on how to do that I don't remember off the top exactly what those are, but there is information on on on how to make that work reliably.
18
00:02:23.640 --> 00:02:24.120
Chris Feeney: When you're doing the.
19
00:02:24.600 --> 00:02:26.970
Patrick Toner: basis yeah recent episode.
20
00:02:27.570 --> 00:02:31.890
Chris Feeney: yeah so go back and listen to it on 1.5 you'll hear us talk like minnie mouse like.
21
00:02:34.950 --> 00:02:36.150
Patrick Toner: lesson so.
22
00:02:36.360 --> 00:02:40.590
Andy Whiteside: Chris is doing the zoom from a vdi session from an eye gel device correct.
23
00:02:40.980 --> 00:02:41.670
Chris Feeney: That is correct.
24
00:02:41.940 --> 00:02:43.860
Andy Whiteside: What what flavor of vdi or UN.
25
00:02:45.060 --> 00:02:46.980
Chris Feeney: it's my custom vdi that I created.
26
00:02:48.630 --> 00:02:49.710
Andy Whiteside: The home home girl.
27
00:02:50.490 --> 00:02:52.710
Chris Feeney: yeah let's just say it's similar to RDP.
28
00:02:53.490 --> 00:02:57.480
Andy Whiteside: Okay, and you know what i'll i'll highlight that because.
29
00:02:57.990 --> 00:03:09.450
Andy Whiteside: A persistent vdi whether it's an azure whether it's in whether it's using a DVD whether it's using citrix whether it's using vmware whether it's using other technologies that are mainstream.
30
00:03:10.020 --> 00:03:19.260
Andy Whiteside: they're still benefit in that because it's available to you anywhere, you could put security around it, I am so frustrated with meeting customers that have pigeonholed.
31
00:03:20.550 --> 00:03:32.070
Andy Whiteside: Digital workspaces or vdi specifically into one niche group and their company and they haven't seen the vision for what it could do for the more power users in the company I struggle with that all the time.
32
00:03:32.490 --> 00:03:36.870
Chris Feeney: You know that's a great point I saw was just scrolling through linkedin and I happen to come across.
33
00:03:38.190 --> 00:03:45.960
Chris Feeney: Somebody posted I guess that it looked to me like it was some kind of exercise at something but.
34
00:03:46.590 --> 00:03:52.560
Chris Feeney: It was like every day was tracking kind of has he completed this circle in it, I guess that was like stuff like.
35
00:03:53.040 --> 00:04:06.030
Chris Feeney: You know, has he has he taken a walk as he been standing as he all this other stuff and he said, you know when he was going to the office, the the most days in a row that he was able to complete this was like five.
36
00:04:07.140 --> 00:04:18.690
Chris Feeney: With remote work, working from home having that flexibility he said i'm now on like a streak of like day 45 or whatever it was it was clearly and then he just hit upon all the reasons why.
37
00:04:19.170 --> 00:04:28.770
Chris Feeney: That flexible remote work has just made things better for him and a lot of ways and productive and all that stuff and just it just highlight all the reasons we talked about it's just.
38
00:04:29.280 --> 00:04:35.010
Chris Feeney: You know there's so many more tangible benefits to having a real digital workspace and I have no idea of this guy's using.
39
00:04:35.550 --> 00:04:49.170
Chris Feeney: citrix or vmware even I Jill but the point is all the stuff we've talked about is there's much more about it than that technical nuts and bolts pieces it's it's the benefits employees receive and all that stuff that.
40
00:04:50.460 --> 00:04:53.070
Andy Whiteside: Was it took a pandemic, to make us learn how to work smarter.
41
00:04:53.850 --> 00:04:55.110
Chris Feeney: I think so yeah.
42
00:04:56.430 --> 00:04:56.820
Chris Feeney: yeah.
43
00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:07.950
Andy Whiteside: i'll highlight for you last week, I went to New York I use my vdi from a plane very successfully I use my vdi from a bus heading into the city, while in the tunnel.
44
00:05:08.340 --> 00:05:09.090
Chris Feeney: So that.
45
00:05:09.420 --> 00:05:23.490
Andy Whiteside: it's pretty amazing and all that's enabled from you know me grabbing a thin client on the way out the door and having 12 hours of battery life, while I bounced around the city on decent or better networks.
46
00:05:24.090 --> 00:05:38.370
Chris Feeney: yeah I mean and it's in this world of 5g I mean that I mean LTE alone would be fine yeah but yeah I saw that, thank you for continuing to advance the cause their show what's out of what's possible.
47
00:05:39.030 --> 00:05:45.600
Andy Whiteside: Well, and the other part of what's possible and we're going to tie it back to this one real quick Patrick you using using the windows device right now right doing zoom.
48
00:05:46.590 --> 00:05:52.710
Patrick Toner: Se emojis out yeah i'm on a windows, a lot of Microsoft surface going local right now so we're kind of covering all the basis.
49
00:05:52.860 --> 00:05:55.650
Chris Feeney: This is an eye gel podcast, by the way, right up the band you.
50
00:05:56.670 --> 00:05:56.940
Chris Feeney: know.
51
00:05:57.330 --> 00:05:57.960
You guys.
52
00:05:59.850 --> 00:06:00.450
Andy Whiteside: Probably have a.
53
00:06:00.480 --> 00:06:02.490
Andy Whiteside: window windows update right in the middle of this.
54
00:06:03.120 --> 00:06:03.780
Patrick Toner: is true.
55
00:06:03.840 --> 00:06:05.310
Patrick Toner: Actually, there, there is one pending.
56
00:06:07.860 --> 00:06:17.760
Andy Whiteside: So, but I bring that up because when you have a true digital workspace that includes vdi that includes x86 presented Apps and SAS Apps.
57
00:06:18.540 --> 00:06:29.100
Andy Whiteside: Because part of my story last week on my thin client was the fact that a browser on it and there were multiple times that I didn't even have to go into vdi I went into my digital workspace and from there went where I needed to go.
58
00:06:29.970 --> 00:06:36.540
Andy Whiteside: I am i'm working with somebody your team actually Chris to come up with a presentation that just walks through all the options are.
59
00:06:36.900 --> 00:06:43.140
Andy Whiteside: Because people don't have a clue a lot of them, most of them, most of them don't have a clue what all the different options are.
60
00:06:43.590 --> 00:07:01.140
Andy Whiteside: They just know the one they've kind of grew up with and haven't been able to deviate but the whole point that conversation is browser and we're gonna talk about browser and what I chose done to include a modern day very accepted supportable browser in chromium in today's discussion.
61
00:07:02.280 --> 00:07:10.020
Chris Feeney: yeah and not only that, but the power of the Community will get highlighted, since this is a Community podcast today yeah.
62
00:07:11.370 --> 00:07:16.710
Andy Whiteside: So let's um let's jump in if you guys can see my screen i've got the right one up here.
63
00:07:16.980 --> 00:07:17.820
Chris Feeney: yeah that's.
64
00:07:18.240 --> 00:07:18.780
Patrick Toner: The one.
65
00:07:19.350 --> 00:07:26.310
Chris Feeney: there's a blog that goes with it right is that the one there it is yep for those watching on video.
66
00:07:26.640 --> 00:07:29.970
Andy Whiteside: In the I Joe communities someone what's this guy's name.
67
00:07:30.030 --> 00:07:30.750
Andy Whiteside: posted a.
68
00:07:31.620 --> 00:07:35.760
Chris Feeney: Beyond Leon i'm going to get this brought me on bike.
69
00:07:37.170 --> 00:07:37.740
Chris Feeney: But you're dead.
70
00:07:38.340 --> 00:07:50.730
Andy Whiteside: So the title of the blog is how to I Joe os with chromium not chrome chromium not chrome os not chrome browser but chromium browser i've also the Web browser and their guide.
71
00:07:51.360 --> 00:08:05.280
Andy Whiteside: But before we do that, between the two of you guys let's walk down memory lane as to what I gel and maybe others have done in the term of in the form of browsers over the past decade, where do we start.
72
00:08:06.870 --> 00:08:15.390
Patrick Toner: Sure yeah you know I think when back when I mean for a long time now back when I was introduced to agile these five six years ago, whatever it was.
73
00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:24.210
Patrick Toner: You know the the option with has always been the firefox browser I Jill has for a long time, included the firefox browser is a local option.
74
00:08:25.080 --> 00:08:40.080
Patrick Toner: Which which for years was a huge competitive advantage against the other thin client solutions, especially from you know Dell and HP were for a long time, there was no browser option, and you know so firefox has kind of been the standard.
75
00:08:41.130 --> 00:08:50.370
Patrick Toner: For a long time and then recently, I want to say within the last year and a half, maybe less maybe was closer to a year ago I gel officially.
76
00:08:51.450 --> 00:08:59.340
Patrick Toner: entered a supported version of the chromium browser so so today I Joe Louis has two built in browser options, you still have the firefox browser.
77
00:09:00.210 --> 00:09:13.890
Patrick Toner: And you have the chromium browser and, of course, for anyone listening chromium is the Open Source browser that pretty much all the other browsers are based on now obviously Google chrome is based on chromium Microsoft edge is based on chromium so.
78
00:09:14.910 --> 00:09:27.000
Patrick Toner: You know, so it really is kind of the underlying Open Source browser that powers, all the other mainstream browsers, with the exception of obviously you know your things like brave browser firefox or some of the other ones.
79
00:09:27.570 --> 00:09:34.230
Patrick Toner: So it really does give you a lot of flexibility gives you a lot of things now part of what we're talking about today is because.
80
00:09:34.800 --> 00:09:42.480
Patrick Toner: The chromium browser comes out of the box it doesn't have all the bells and whistles is, for example, chrome it looks like chrome the icon is the same as chrome with a different color.
81
00:09:43.530 --> 00:09:54.510
Patrick Toner: But you need to customize a little bit, if you want to use it, the way you want to use chrome and that's what this blog does such a good job of just kind of laying out a guide on how to change settings but.
82
00:09:55.320 --> 00:09:59.070
Patrick Toner: that's where we are today, you know many people use the chromium browser they prefer it.
83
00:10:00.180 --> 00:10:01.860
Patrick Toner: that's fully built in Nigel less now.
84
00:10:03.090 --> 00:10:10.440
Andy Whiteside: and Patrick how much of that is, they prefer it, which is probably true because that's what they know how much of that is.
85
00:10:11.880 --> 00:10:16.770
Andy Whiteside: Is that's what applications that you're going to access SAS software as a service applications.
86
00:10:17.340 --> 00:10:24.180
Andy Whiteside: that's what they require what that's what they're in for wasn't that long ago that things were written for Internet explorer, six, seven, whatever.
87
00:10:24.930 --> 00:10:38.100
Andy Whiteside: But that ship kind of sailed and now there's this is ideas of browser you don't need to be specific, with the application versions, but you kind of need to be specific, with the browser edition version five yeah.
88
00:10:38.310 --> 00:10:48.390
Patrick Toner: yeah that's true for the most part right they you know a lot of SAS base, you know browser based applications will tell you hey we support these few browsers that's what we officially support.
89
00:10:49.740 --> 00:11:06.930
Patrick Toner: You know one thing i've always heard in the past customers have told me many times yeah I like firefox but I can't manage firefox that's why we don't use it, the nice thing about agile it's always been a good pivot is it well hey I Joel s in the US allows you to manage firefox policy.
90
00:11:08.010 --> 00:11:20.010
Patrick Toner: You know what with chromium you know because other browsers are based on it yeah it is going to be more I guess supported in you know, at least in my experience with you know browser based applications.
91
00:11:21.480 --> 00:11:31.590
Patrick Toner: However, there are ways and this guy goes through it a little bit where you can kind of trick the website into thinking you're coming from a different browser or a different operating system.
92
00:11:32.340 --> 00:11:43.620
Patrick Toner: And that's something that you can do, which is guide kind of touches on some of these options, but but yeah it's it's generally coming from a requirements your point end and maybe not always from a preference standpoint.
93
00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:55.650
Andy Whiteside: Do you guys have a point in time, in your career, where you saw you know chrome start to take off, but yet applications were Internet explorer based and you were in this no man's land.
94
00:11:56.790 --> 00:12:01.980
Chris Feeney: Oh yeah that's interesting I was just recently just dealt with this right so.
95
00:12:03.630 --> 00:12:07.500
Chris Feeney: My employment history, you know where I was before they.
96
00:12:08.550 --> 00:12:17.940
Chris Feeney: The main browser it was a web based ui and, but it was built off of Internet explorer and it wasn't until recently, like.
97
00:12:18.450 --> 00:12:29.310
Chris Feeney: Recent versions, where they began to allow some of the administrative functionality to be used in other browsers chromium based, for that matter, so in generally speaking that's chrome or edge.
98
00:12:30.300 --> 00:12:43.710
Chris Feeney: But for a very long time, you had to be on a certain browser version, and that was obviously embedded into Microsoft and now Microsoft has finally and you know basically end of life for the ever.
99
00:12:45.450 --> 00:12:54.690
Chris Feeney: explorer but there were so many of across the year so many applications based on that chrome would get you in but may not have all that functionality, and so there was.
100
00:12:55.200 --> 00:13:01.860
Chris Feeney: You know the sea change, whereas is the rise of SAS and stuff like that some of these things already out of the gate supported some of these other browsers.
101
00:13:02.250 --> 00:13:11.850
Chris Feeney: A lot of folks began to use, you know Max and bring your own kind of thing and they they're the safari was their browser of choice and a lot of respects and.
102
00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:27.420
Chris Feeney: You know the user experience with safari is you know it's different if you're not used to that type of browser but but chrome and chromium rather has kind of become a pretty good standard across the board for application support.
103
00:13:31.050 --> 00:13:43.830
Andy Whiteside: And how long was it that we were into chrome slash chromium um first of all, is there, as far as you guys know is there is there any difference, other than the fact that one is officially supported by Google and one is open source.
104
00:13:45.450 --> 00:13:54.990
Patrick Toner: yeah that's that's pretty much it, you know the chromium chromium browser is the Open Source browser that's underlying chrome Google takes that browser adds you know.
105
00:13:55.560 --> 00:14:10.830
Patrick Toner: a bunch of things to it, for example, their you know their their media codecs and all these different things that allows it to play for example YouTube or other types of videos they you know add their ability to manage the browser with the Google enterprise suite.
106
00:14:12.180 --> 00:14:15.540
Patrick Toner: And they repackage it has grown and it's it's very similar.
107
00:14:17.220 --> 00:14:28.890
Patrick Toner: You know, and it ends application, but you know chromium is really just kind of a it for most end users it'll seem like a stripped down version of chrome but really it's the underlying base of chrome.
108
00:14:30.930 --> 00:14:31.200
yeah.
109
00:14:32.340 --> 00:14:47.070
Andy Whiteside: And so, how long into the world of chrome was it before they started understanding the need for the enterprise management capabilities, I know there's admin packs for active directory that have been around for a while.
110
00:14:48.180 --> 00:15:02.340
Andy Whiteside: The Google at some point decided hey This needs to become an enterprise business where the browser and can you use those ATMs to manage chromium or is it all done through some type of i&i file or json file.
111
00:15:04.320 --> 00:15:09.090
Patrick Toner: Well, you know, specifically with what we're talking about today with agile, the beauty of it is.
112
00:15:09.420 --> 00:15:18.300
Patrick Toner: You can fully manage the chromium browser from the US console right, so you don't you don't really need that Google management layer or any other layer
113
00:15:19.020 --> 00:15:28.740
Patrick Toner: You just basically you can you can edit the i&i file and json files, if you want to be a US and different policies and profiles that you're pushing down.
114
00:15:29.340 --> 00:15:35.850
Patrick Toner: But there's there's also some really cool built in options to put policies in place, you know and.
115
00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:48.030
Patrick Toner: And you know not not the blog the blog kind of gives the introduction, but the the the guide here that i'm not gonna say his name because i'm i'm probably Leon here Leon I won't go with the last name.
116
00:15:49.080 --> 00:16:03.000
Patrick Toner: When he put together it kind of walks through like how to put those general policies and so that's again the nice thing about you, is you don't need any other management layer you can just use you a mess and manage the policy for that browser right.
117
00:16:03.660 --> 00:16:14.340
Andy Whiteside: Well that's the key right just just you so don't take it along okay so let's let's walk through this blog and understand how he's approaching it Chris you want to take the first section here.
118
00:16:15.090 --> 00:16:26.490
Chris Feeney: yeah so um it's just that high level the agile community as as a provided are given some awards for those that are contributing.
119
00:16:28.320 --> 00:16:42.510
Chris Feeney: You know regularly and also with content and other things, to the benefit of the Community, and they have this thing called VIP and so Leon as a VIP and there's been some really cool projects that some of the VIP have done, and so.
120
00:16:43.530 --> 00:16:50.790
Chris Feeney: My general understanding is he kind of you know, obviously, a great interest in this, and you know he highlights the fact that.
121
00:16:52.470 --> 00:16:57.390
Chris Feeney: In August of it's hard to believe it's it was 2021.
122
00:16:58.440 --> 00:17:09.060
Chris Feeney: feels like it was before that, but 1104 100 I gel released an added chromium officially initially experimentally, and then that's that's since changed but.
123
00:17:10.770 --> 00:17:18.300
Chris Feeney: It was an opportunity to obviously Okay, what can we do with it beside we now we have a second browser in the in the product.
124
00:17:19.470 --> 00:17:20.400
Chris Feeney: And, obviously.
125
00:17:21.870 --> 00:17:29.850
Chris Feeney: If you look at the chromium project or whatever open sores there's a lot of customization and so he took it upon themselves to kind of pull together some of these.
126
00:17:30.420 --> 00:17:39.720
Chris Feeney: ideas and then contribute back to the Community with this, how to guide, which as we're will look at it here in a minute he maintains it.
127
00:17:41.160 --> 00:17:43.890
Chris Feeney: And, most recently, I think the last update was.
128
00:17:46.200 --> 00:17:48.480
Chris Feeney: In April, so not not too far behind.
129
00:17:49.710 --> 00:18:02.910
Chris Feeney: April of 2022 so kudos to Leon for doing that certainly appreciate that and and really anybody that has something that they would like to contribute to the Community that's what we want to highlight here on this blog.
130
00:18:03.540 --> 00:18:09.960
Andy Whiteside: And he actually calls out three fourths of the global desktop browser market is chrome based chrome something.
131
00:18:10.320 --> 00:18:21.120
Chris Feeney: yeah I mean edge opera Vivaldi I didn't know brave was based on chromium I use brave on my mobile phone occasionally just to try it out, but um yeah.
132
00:18:21.570 --> 00:18:32.610
Patrick Toner: I was just gonna say the same Chris I stand corrected I earlier said breed was not chromium based, and I use it personally to on all my devices, I prefer brave yeah I didn't realize it was chromium based that's that's pretty cool.
133
00:18:33.030 --> 00:18:42.990
Chris Feeney: yeah but compatibility, I mean you can still obviously see and reminds me back in the day, you had net was at Netscape and originally.
134
00:18:44.160 --> 00:18:53.910
Chris Feeney: It became something, but I began to emerge, and it was those two browsers that we're fighting for market share for a long time.
135
00:18:55.890 --> 00:19:03.180
Chris Feeney: And here we go and then chrome appeared, you know, and here we are years later, with that sort of becoming the standard.
136
00:19:04.350 --> 00:19:07.860
Chris Feeney: accepted so but that what we've got here so there's a.
137
00:19:09.840 --> 00:19:15.030
Chris Feeney: mean little further down on the blog he kind of talks about you know just an IT administrator some of the things that.
138
00:19:15.090 --> 00:19:16.590
Chris Feeney: Chris earlier.
139
00:19:16.680 --> 00:19:22.770
Andy Whiteside: yeah you mentioned Netscape and i've listened to a podcast on the browser wars from the 90s.
140
00:19:22.950 --> 00:19:23.880
Chris Feeney: or oh yeah.
141
00:19:24.600 --> 00:19:36.090
Andy Whiteside: I mean the fact that we've you know here's here's what i'll play the manipulation of trying to get everybody to have to use a certain browser because it was built built into the operating system was one play right.
142
00:19:36.480 --> 00:19:37.440
Andy Whiteside: But it is.
143
00:19:37.470 --> 00:19:48.450
Andy Whiteside: crowd sourced kinda and I will credit card source, but crowd demand has driven us towards a single browser so the world wanted us to go all over the place, with browsers.
144
00:19:48.720 --> 00:20:02.640
Andy Whiteside: But the ability to actually leverage applications, the applications really and customer user ui drove us back to almost a single browser not 100% but at least a base code for a single browser and that's kind of how we got to this chromium thing.
145
00:20:04.230 --> 00:20:05.550
Chris Feeney: yeah Now this is great.
146
00:20:09.210 --> 00:20:11.670
Chris Feeney: yeah and it was interesting little another thing is.
147
00:20:13.500 --> 00:20:19.290
Chris Feeney: I know we've talked about this before Andy but just self taught and he's he's giving it back and.
148
00:20:20.010 --> 00:20:29.550
Chris Feeney: You know those those things that you feel really good about or whatever, I mean you know, taking the opportunity to share that knowledge, I mean, I think that, certainly from your own.
149
00:20:30.390 --> 00:20:40.200
Chris Feeney: From my own personal brand you know that's that's really kind of I mean Doug Doug brown kind of highlights a lot of that really there's power in in giving back to the Community.
150
00:20:41.760 --> 00:20:50.730
Chris Feeney: And this is just one example of that and i'm sure people have come to him since he's put this out there, you know, and obviously.
151
00:20:51.270 --> 00:21:06.510
Chris Feeney: You know, one of my favorite sayings is always learning right always always continuous learning i'm never feel like I have arrived, you know, and this is a skill set that i'm not as up to speed on but i'm excited to kind of dig through this blog and what this guy has so.
152
00:21:08.070 --> 00:21:13.890
Andy Whiteside: Okay, so anything in this post up here this part of the conversation that we need to cover that we haven't covered yet.
153
00:21:14.820 --> 00:21:17.130
Chris Feeney: Not I think we're good getting to the meat of this.
154
00:21:17.850 --> 00:21:33.000
Andy Whiteside: Alright, so this is about was this 22 pages of contents and the main concept here is how to manage chromium browser, for I gel from within us right.
155
00:21:34.830 --> 00:21:36.720
Chris Feeney: Now yeah through through profiles and.
156
00:21:36.750 --> 00:21:38.070
Chris Feeney: Good to be applied, but yes.
157
00:21:38.760 --> 00:21:49.800
Andy Whiteside: hey in real quick going into this X number of years ago, a year ago, this would have been a custom partition now it's baked into the operating system by default.
158
00:21:51.540 --> 00:21:52.260
Chris Feeney: that's correct.
159
00:21:52.590 --> 00:21:53.250
that's right yeah.
160
00:21:54.360 --> 00:22:01.560
Patrick Toner: And you know a lot of the things that this guide is doing if you know if you use this as a custom partition you still could have done a lot of the things that.
161
00:22:01.950 --> 00:22:10.350
Patrick Toner: Leon is pointing out here, but it would have been done via just you know, a command you'd have a super long command with all these different flags that you want to turn on and off from the.
162
00:22:10.860 --> 00:22:23.070
Patrick Toner: chrome or chromium browser but the cool thing is now there's built in settings where you can just kind of add policies and as long as you know what they are, you can change the you know, change the switch on them.
163
00:22:24.270 --> 00:22:27.360
Andy Whiteside: Right and guys how much of this.
164
00:22:28.560 --> 00:22:34.740
Andy Whiteside: is just uplifted by the idea that there is an open source version of chrome chromium these days chromium chrome.
165
00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:37.680
Andy Whiteside: Like how long has that been around do you guys know.
166
00:22:39.390 --> 00:22:40.500
Chris Feeney: The chromium project.
167
00:22:42.150 --> 00:22:45.420
Chris Feeney: I don't I want to say, I mean the first time I saw chrome.
168
00:22:46.980 --> 00:22:53.490
Chris Feeney: I want to say 20 years ago I could have that wrong, but I mean so chromium would have had to existed before that.
169
00:22:55.110 --> 00:22:56.580
Andy Whiteside: I think chromium is a.
170
00:22:57.930 --> 00:23:06.960
Andy Whiteside: backdoor way of getting more chrome out there, I think chrome browser was probably just a Google thing for for a while i'd have to go look it up.
171
00:23:07.920 --> 00:23:14.100
Chris Feeney: yeah I just found it hopefully it's chromium.org and then there's chromium projects.
172
00:23:15.810 --> 00:23:23.370
Chris Feeney: it's an open source project behind the Google chrome browser and Google chrome os respectively, so I it's like which one was first you know.
173
00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:28.350
Patrick Toner: thousand eight was released so 13 years ago, was the first release of chromium.
174
00:23:28.830 --> 00:23:29.250
Chris Feeney: yeah.
175
00:23:29.490 --> 00:23:32.040
Patrick Toner: I can imagine, namely Google developers that.
176
00:23:32.820 --> 00:23:33.870
Patrick Toner: yeah configured it.
177
00:23:34.350 --> 00:23:41.130
Chris Feeney: For those listening on the podcast or drive or will be listening they're probably driving around going folks it was Google first.
178
00:23:44.790 --> 00:23:56.280
Andy Whiteside: Google started open source, but then they probably saw the power of open source in terms of iterative development, as well as the ability to get more Google oriented things on more devices.
179
00:23:56.400 --> 00:24:06.660
Chris Feeney: yeah well it's interesting because that never were that was based on chromium os and Google ultimately bought them and now kind of conversion so.
180
00:24:08.310 --> 00:24:09.570
Chris Feeney: Regardless here we are.
181
00:24:11.310 --> 00:24:14.430
Chris Feeney: Talking about how to customize chromium so let's get after it.
182
00:24:15.330 --> 00:24:23.280
Andy Whiteside: Well okay So where do we want to go in this conversation got 20 minutes left there any where do you guys want me to go, but I need.
183
00:24:23.340 --> 00:24:24.120
Patrick Toner: You guys wanna.
184
00:24:24.360 --> 00:24:25.200
Andy Whiteside: drive it.
185
00:24:25.530 --> 00:24:37.230
Patrick Toner: yeah I would say, you know, because we can it might be a little I mean extremely boring if we just dive down its policies and all that but maybe just talk about some of the practical reason somebody might want to do this right.
186
00:24:38.490 --> 00:24:43.260
Patrick Toner: You know, I was talking to Chris earlier about this recently was working with a customer.
187
00:24:44.310 --> 00:24:52.200
Patrick Toner: They have a training software, so they had to their users, they had these training centers and they were using agile just deploy out to these training centers.
188
00:24:52.620 --> 00:24:57.030
Patrick Toner: And they originally were running windows in there but they wanted to kind of shrink that footprint.
189
00:24:57.450 --> 00:25:04.440
Patrick Toner: So there wasn't a there wasn't a vdi broker on the back end they weren't they weren't running citrix or vmware or anything like that.
190
00:25:04.740 --> 00:25:17.040
Patrick Toner: It was just purely based on hey my these users need to get on a device a browser comes up they're presented with the testings with a website login and then they need to log in and do the training.
191
00:25:18.180 --> 00:25:20.490
Patrick Toner: and take tests and different things they do in there, so.
192
00:25:21.540 --> 00:25:23.130
Patrick Toner: The interesting thing is.
193
00:25:24.240 --> 00:25:34.020
Patrick Toner: You know so basically, I think I think anything you mentioned earlier, one of the things there was a requirement on this website, or you had to come from Internet explorer.
194
00:25:34.590 --> 00:25:41.490
Patrick Toner: On a windows obviously from a windows device because that's the only place you could run Internet explorer natively So what we were able to do is.
195
00:25:42.060 --> 00:25:49.230
Patrick Toner: configure some policies now in this use case we used firefox I can't remember why would you could do the exact same thing and chromium here.
196
00:25:50.670 --> 00:25:54.600
Patrick Toner: and basically we just changed a couple of flags in the in the.
197
00:25:55.590 --> 00:26:02.910
Patrick Toner: In the browser settings from the agile us and we checked the website to think we're coming from Internet explorer and a certain version of it.
198
00:26:03.360 --> 00:26:18.300
Patrick Toner: And it worked beautifully the users, but they were able to log right in now, before we did that fix on the users would hit the website, they would get an error hey you're not on a supportive browser as soon as we made that change again just be ideal profile very simple pushed it out.
199
00:26:19.560 --> 00:26:29.700
Patrick Toner: The website, let them login users were testing, they were taking their tests, whatever they do in there and it worked great and now that customer doesn't have to patch windows devices, they don't have to.
200
00:26:30.540 --> 00:26:37.440
Patrick Toner: You know all this overhead just for users to take tests, they can have a lightweight secure operating system and.
201
00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:43.590
Patrick Toner: leverage these types of really cool policies to kind of trick that website into thinking they're coming from another browser.
202
00:26:44.370 --> 00:26:56.730
Patrick Toner: So that's just one instance and throw it out there, Chris and you I don't know if you guys have had you know you know different or similar type experiences, but that's definitely a type of thing where this guide would be very useful.
203
00:26:57.150 --> 00:27:11.310
Chris Feeney: i'm putting in the chat I just found an article that basically kind of talks about that same issue right where you go to a website and it and it identifies or says it's not a supporter browser and then this is sort of walking you through how to.
204
00:27:12.330 --> 00:27:13.650
Chris Feeney: How to solve that problem.
205
00:27:14.820 --> 00:27:19.140
Andy Whiteside: For your browser because it was looking for Internet explorer because it was looking for a full blown chrome.
206
00:27:20.490 --> 00:27:27.360
Patrick Toner: or Internet explorer so it actually it checks there's different things in the in the in the browser when it hits the website.
207
00:27:27.750 --> 00:27:36.930
Patrick Toner: The website is okay show me your information, show me your papers right and the browser presents hey here's what I here's what I am i'm this browser on this version.
208
00:27:37.470 --> 00:27:44.310
Patrick Toner: So basically you're just modifying that information so so the website says okay you're good come on in and then you're you're up and running.
209
00:27:45.390 --> 00:27:56.490
Andy Whiteside: And the key term here is the engine right isn't what we call the browser the browser engine that all needs to be certain meet certain standards are certain versions and that's what the websites looking for, is there a different term.
210
00:27:58.560 --> 00:28:02.460
Patrick Toner: We got me there I you know, I think, from us from a functionality.
211
00:28:02.460 --> 00:28:03.360
Andy Whiteside: standpoint that's.
212
00:28:03.450 --> 00:28:09.210
Patrick Toner: that's probably true right, so there could be instances where an application says listen, you have to use Internet explorer.
213
00:28:10.440 --> 00:28:18.030
Patrick Toner: And there might be functionality reasons for that, however, you generally with these websites do Chris mentioned company used to work for earlier.
214
00:28:18.510 --> 00:28:28.590
Patrick Toner: And back when I spent time in healthcare, this may 100% be related to the company you work for but I used to manage your provider and that forced me to come in from Internet explorer.
215
00:28:29.310 --> 00:28:46.410
Patrick Toner: Now, in theory, I could do the same thing and hit my provide a appliance doing what I did with agile would everything work I don't know that's that's that's another story and that might come down to why these websites say hey you have to use Internet explorer versus chrome versus whatever.
216
00:28:47.460 --> 00:28:49.980
Patrick Toner: But you know that's where the testing comes in.
217
00:28:51.840 --> 00:29:00.390
Andy Whiteside: Because, is there any type of use case where you still would want to create your own custom partition of chromium or would you want to just go with what's in the operating system.
218
00:29:01.740 --> 00:29:08.460
Chris Feeney: I mean, I would say don't use chromium we had there's chrome but I mean.
219
00:29:09.570 --> 00:29:20.340
Chris Feeney: I would just say use this or other material to take what what's there, and if, for some reason there's you know something that you can't then, then you know so.
220
00:29:20.730 --> 00:29:33.840
Andy Whiteside: Let me clarify the question, so you can either use chromium which is baked in or you could create a custom partition using a Linux version of chrome what Chris is Fini saying don't use the custom partition unless you have a really, really good reason to.
221
00:29:35.010 --> 00:29:43.140
Chris Feeney: write, I mean this This guide kind of talks about what's what's possible as far as customization whereas I think we alluded to it earlier with with when installing chrome.
222
00:29:43.800 --> 00:29:53.670
Chris Feeney: Any any customization piece, you would be part of this long string of commands or something like that I might stand in it correct on that, but.
223
00:29:55.050 --> 00:29:59.010
Chris Feeney: But then there's also questions of do you want google's things.
224
00:30:00.600 --> 00:30:03.540
Chris Feeney: being used on your endpoint you know so.
225
00:30:05.130 --> 00:30:05.340
Andy Whiteside: So.
226
00:30:06.090 --> 00:30:10.110
Andy Whiteside: what's an example when you want us mozilla in the ideal world firefox.
227
00:30:11.100 --> 00:30:22.710
Chris Feeney: So my great question for me I dealt with like which browser kind of option when in my first couple years.
228
00:30:24.900 --> 00:30:37.680
Chris Feeney: Learning the difference between how a smart card might act if you're using firefox versus chrome, for example, which browser was supported for logging into a website with a smart card, and then the federal space.
229
00:30:38.310 --> 00:30:56.280
Chris Feeney: And so there was times when I when I spent just trying to get you know is firefox the right away or the right browser to get in with, or should we try another method or their modifications on the firefox browser to make it work better, so I remember dealing with that on occasion.
230
00:30:57.600 --> 00:31:11.820
Chris Feeney: far enough removed I can't remember all the details, but, but there were some user experience differences when using chrome to get into that same website usually what problems they might have or using firefox to get into that same place.
231
00:31:13.350 --> 00:31:16.680
Patrick Toner: I think about a little more practical to Chris I mean bill is that's a very practical.
232
00:31:16.830 --> 00:31:19.620
Patrick Toner: Application but generally you know it's.
233
00:31:20.850 --> 00:31:27.660
Patrick Toner: Your points just things working correctly or what i've seen is requirements coming down from info SEC, and a company so.
234
00:31:28.260 --> 00:31:33.210
Patrick Toner: For example, I had you know back in the day when there was only firefox I was working with a financial customer.
235
00:31:33.750 --> 00:31:37.470
Patrick Toner: And their info SEC team said, we do not allow firefox in the environment.
236
00:31:38.040 --> 00:31:44.040
Patrick Toner: So we tried to go back and forth with them a little bit hey guys, this is really secure is all the options, you can do, and it was like full stop.
237
00:31:44.370 --> 00:31:48.780
Patrick Toner: No, you cannot put firefox in this environment, for whatever reason, that was their policy.
238
00:31:49.500 --> 00:32:03.300
Patrick Toner: So back then we had we leverage the custom partition and put chrome in there and they were happy as could be you know, so I think a lot of times it comes down to a what you what you're talking about Chris the requirements of technology you're connecting to.
239
00:32:03.750 --> 00:32:12.180
Patrick Toner: and also a lot of times this is driven by info SEC, this is driven by you know the guys that we work with you know the guys, who are managing Nigel they don't always have a.
240
00:32:13.050 --> 00:32:21.780
Patrick Toner: Choice right there they're told, these are the browsers you can use and that's why it's nice to have that flexibility now if it's me and i'm the customer.
241
00:32:22.800 --> 00:32:32.430
Patrick Toner: My order of preference is going to be number one, I want to go firefox because it's been in the agile s for a long time it's very mature with its integrations.
242
00:32:32.910 --> 00:32:41.100
Patrick Toner: chromium will be my next choice, just because it's you know also integrated and a lot of those options are built in a B so comes down to manage ability.
243
00:32:41.400 --> 00:32:48.060
Patrick Toner: And then, my third option would be okay if i'm forced to use it edge for Linux or i'm forced to use chrome or whatever.
244
00:32:48.630 --> 00:32:59.520
Patrick Toner: Then i'll go that route because my company is telling me to, or because my back end solutions requiring it and it doesn't work with the other ones, but that would be kind of my order of importance personally if i'm the admin.
245
00:33:00.870 --> 00:33:02.880
Chris Feeney: yeah I was thinking about this, I will story.
246
00:33:05.220 --> 00:33:12.420
Chris Feeney: At home, my my daughter has been doing an internship and she has basically one of the tasks to take.
247
00:33:13.470 --> 00:33:20.940
Chris Feeney: pictures and videos and that she receives and then upload them to dropbox and she's been doing that, through a browser now her.
248
00:33:22.020 --> 00:33:26.790
Chris Feeney: browser she's been using for over a year, plus has been firefox.
249
00:33:27.450 --> 00:33:35.250
Chris Feeney: uh but I didn't know until like last week that she was really having a hard time these files would all of a sudden just not finished uploading and.
250
00:33:35.670 --> 00:33:41.280
Chris Feeney: So without really doing much trouble she said well let's try another browser and she had edge on there and I had her go and.
251
00:33:41.790 --> 00:33:50.820
Chris Feeney: We thought Maybe it was the wi fi connection or the so I had her plug into my ethernet and and after using edge.
252
00:33:51.420 --> 00:33:57.180
Chris Feeney: A few times, she those issues went away and now, maybe there's a setting in firefox that could have solved that better but.
253
00:33:57.600 --> 00:34:04.290
Chris Feeney: You know, for her a bunch of frustration with one browser turned into now i'm getting things done faster with another browser so.
254
00:34:04.770 --> 00:34:12.840
Chris Feeney: You know, there may be situations like that, where it dictates for different reasons, you know which browser you have to use or which one is supported better.
255
00:34:13.290 --> 00:34:22.980
Chris Feeney: You know, based on some of these cloud Apps right, you know, maybe they code it to certain browsers or interactions, but that was just one scenario that recently came up.
256
00:34:24.330 --> 00:34:34.710
Patrick Toner: Let me ask you guys a question on this and you know i'm curious both your thoughts, but it seems I mean Andy you've been in citrix you know world obviously a long, long time since the kind of the beginning.
257
00:34:35.370 --> 00:34:43.830
Patrick Toner: What do you think as far as you know, I kind of see things, maybe moving more towards the browser being the main application that people are going to use.
258
00:34:44.400 --> 00:34:56.430
Patrick Toner: How do you see that going like do you see, like, for example, I gel maybe relying more on the browser in the future versus the you know the citrix workspace at how do you kind of see that going.
259
00:34:58.440 --> 00:35:07.500
Andy Whiteside: Well, it really comes down to a conversation of what is the main application that the customer user is going to be an all day.
260
00:35:08.190 --> 00:35:20.670
Andy Whiteside: I spoke to a former citrix sales manager executive a couple of weeks ago and he was throwing citrix and vmware under the bus because he said how work from a chromebook all day.
261
00:35:21.300 --> 00:35:33.540
Andy Whiteside: And I didn't say it to me, I was like but you don't do real work you don't do you don't produce anything like your idea of work as an email like that's work or going into a salesforce CRM or something.
262
00:35:35.550 --> 00:35:46.620
Andy Whiteside: For people who do real production work where you have to actually go out and produce documents and files and things that that x86 workload.
263
00:35:47.850 --> 00:35:55.980
Andy Whiteside: And maybe most specifically the windows most widely use Microsoft application in the world, in my opinion, or is without a doubt windows.
264
00:35:57.480 --> 00:36:04.170
Andy Whiteside: And, followed by browsers and outlook and all that good stuff and Alex another great example right, I mean I probably use.
265
00:36:04.560 --> 00:36:15.120
Andy Whiteside: The online version of outlook more than anybody, I know, but I still run into scenarios, where I gotta open up windows are open up outlook fat client somewhere in my virtual world and use it.
266
00:36:16.110 --> 00:36:22.710
Andy Whiteside: Patrick has no doubt it's going to become more and more important to have a browser that can get to all the different clouds software as a service out there.
267
00:36:23.970 --> 00:36:29.730
Andy Whiteside: But we're still probably a decade or two away from everything just happens in a browser.
268
00:36:31.860 --> 00:36:42.210
Andy Whiteside: Just a lot of legacy applications out there and there's a lot of evolution that even the best companies in the world, Microsoft, for example, can't make it on par as they could an x86 out.
269
00:36:44.610 --> 00:36:54.930
Patrick Toner: got it, you know I look at something like an okta and you kind of kind of I had a customer one time they had vmware in the back end citrix you know different Web.
270
00:36:55.800 --> 00:37:01.020
Patrick Toner: You know sites that have to access and they kind of brought it all together with okta and I thought that was a really great use case of just.
271
00:37:01.500 --> 00:37:16.890
Patrick Toner: hey you know it's all in one place it's all here, and you know they did all the you know the the identity management singles you know dual factor, everything was kind of integrated, but you know citrix also would you know and vmware have solutions that do similar things and.
272
00:37:18.180 --> 00:37:24.750
Patrick Toner: yeah I just I just get you know that that's great feedback I think it's it's just changing so quickly in that respect so many.
273
00:37:24.780 --> 00:37:25.980
Andy Whiteside: More things going to win.
274
00:37:26.580 --> 00:37:37.020
Patrick Toner: And i'm the same as you and I use outlook in the browser full time pretty much unless I absolutely have to go into the actual windows application I think it's just a better experience.
275
00:37:37.710 --> 00:37:48.510
Chris Feeney: I think that's the case because i've tried different browsers with office calm and I can tell there's a different user experience, even the layout depending on which browser i'm using using excuse me.
276
00:37:49.710 --> 00:37:54.390
Chris Feeney: But it's so is a lot of functional things that even more and more.
277
00:37:55.590 --> 00:38:06.900
Chris Feeney: less of a need to use a the local install of an APP, so I do think that that long tail of windows these Apps and as these web based versions of them become much more functional.
278
00:38:07.710 --> 00:38:19.740
Chris Feeney: or even mobile versions and a mobile os world that that need for a windows desktop to run an APP is becoming less and less so, I do agree that that's the trend we're seeing.
279
00:38:21.540 --> 00:38:22.650
Chris Feeney: But windows has a.
280
00:38:24.210 --> 00:38:34.800
Chris Feeney: long history in the enterprise world and will probably continue to see applications developed for windows up until the time of browser is completely sufficient.
281
00:38:37.950 --> 00:38:46.380
Andy Whiteside: yeah yeah there's a lot of Apps that are going to not have all the features, I mean it's one thing to make new ones in a browser which I think happens a lot, these days, but not totally.
282
00:38:46.890 --> 00:38:47.250
yeah.
283
00:38:50.010 --> 00:38:52.800
Andy Whiteside: Okay, so guys What else do we want to cover in terms of.
284
00:38:54.180 --> 00:39:02.700
Andy Whiteside: This document and what he's showing here I think it's just important for people to find the blog the original one we mentioned, and then from there, you can link to here and get to.
285
00:39:04.020 --> 00:39:14.640
Chris Feeney: yeah I think what I what stood out to me was um you know and building some of the customization pieces he does a really nice job of here's what the table is, but then here's a screenshot.
286
00:39:15.120 --> 00:39:29.700
Chris Feeney: And some of those settings that there's some policy settings in the custom application that he kind of calls out which I would say is definitely more on the very advanced side if you've not had a chance to really dig into some of those.
287
00:39:30.960 --> 00:39:41.040
Chris Feeney: And in fact I actually sent this guide over to one of our developers, to see if there's anything that on a project that we're working on that maybe we could leverage with chromium.
288
00:39:42.240 --> 00:39:51.720
Chris Feeney: To maybe get some customization pieces, maybe advanced this project a little little for having no idea, but will will certainly take a look at it, but I think.
289
00:39:52.230 --> 00:40:05.340
Chris Feeney: You know it's a 20 page guide so it's pretty pretty pretty meaty we'll just go with that and and it's detailed as far as what versions of stuff that type of thing so.
290
00:40:06.990 --> 00:40:16.440
Chris Feeney: You know, definitely encourage folks to go to there and try it out and certainly give Leon as many kudos as you possibly can, for putting this together and maintaining it.
291
00:40:19.140 --> 00:40:20.970
Andy Whiteside: Yes, it's very detailed and.
292
00:40:22.110 --> 00:40:28.170
Andy Whiteside: Lots of screenshots which, as you know, if you put documentation together before it's that's it's hard to get all that in there and.
293
00:40:28.200 --> 00:40:42.330
Chris Feeney: there's a guy named Carl who works for another Var who lives off of this stuff right, this is kind of what he does so screenshots and texts are always helpful, would you not agree, I wouldn't want to be that, as my main job but.
294
00:40:43.320 --> 00:40:54.000
Patrick Toner: Anyway, it was appreciated, on the other side, you know I like a lot of visual screenshots things like that so i'm not confused yeah so you know, but I don't like doing it, but I do like reading it yeah.
295
00:40:54.180 --> 00:40:55.620
Andy Whiteside: that's good to have people out there, doing that.
296
00:40:56.100 --> 00:40:59.070
Andy Whiteside: yeah not sure how they have time to do that, but.
297
00:40:59.130 --> 00:41:05.370
Chris Feeney: that's yeah that's the other piece, but if it's a if it's their passion, by all means feed feed the beast yeah.
298
00:41:06.360 --> 00:41:12.810
Andy Whiteside: Alright guys well i've got a wrap i've got a I don't sit in the closet all day actually have to go have meetings all day every day.
299
00:41:13.890 --> 00:41:16.050
Andy Whiteside: that's where I gotta go next for sure you guys doing.
300
00:41:16.980 --> 00:41:17.100
Chris Feeney: I.
301
00:41:17.340 --> 00:41:19.650
Chris Feeney: Think sandy are you don't take care guys.
302
00:41:20.850 --> 00:41:21.360
Andy Whiteside: Thanks.