Ahm … did I miss something?
My last installation is 147.0.7727.56 (Chromium has actually 151, even the /e/ Browser is 148). The Cromite-Repo doesn’t connect for months, whatever I try.
Is there something on my side I can do? Or other question: is Cromite still a good choice?
You are right: cromite.org has not been reachable for several months now. Granted, it only redirected to GitHub - uazo/cromite: Cromite a Bromite fork with ad blocking and privacy enhancements; take back your browser! · GitHub, but it also is the URL for the Cromite-Repo.
There have been several GitHub issues where users have pointed out the permanent offline state of the website.
The main developer has also posted a short statement in a GitHub issue: [WARNING] List of CVEs for Cromite · Issue #2991 · uazo/cromite · GitHub
I mentioned this issue in the description of this release.
You’re definitely right. The current version of v148 Cromite may be vulnerable to some of those CVEs.
Please wait for the next version.
I mentioned this issue in the description of this release.I need some time to figure out what Cromite needs (and whether Cromite is even needed). I’m not satisfied with continuing the way we have been so far.
You can manually update to the newest version 148 (on which the /e/OS browser is based, I guess), see Release v148.0.7778.168-cb3baf14f52eb4365d017f640f85310735c19b79 · uazo/cromite · GitHub.
I am well aware that such free-time browser development efforts are a huge undertaking, so I do not want to blame the main developer for anything! Instead, I hope that they will figure out how to pick up the old development speed.
I have switched to Vivaldi for now as my secondary browser (I use Firefox as primary browser and the /e/OS browser as fallback).
EDIT: Is Cromite a good choice? I would currently switch to another Chromium browser (or Firefox/Waterfox/Fennec/…) and keep (but not really use) Cromite. If the development continues, you can then switch back; if not, you will to have permanently switch to another browser.
I use duckduckgo, I don’t know if you have tried it and for whatever reason didn’t like it? Used to have Brave as the secondary one but now e browser replaced it.
Duckduckgo isn’t a browser. It’s (like Tor Browser) just a Firefox with some settings, isn’t it? So I would prefer the original.
Brave has always been suspect to me because of it’s Brave Rewards and other builtin features. You have to configure a few things to get a quiet Brave.
The German Kuketz Blog made a large and very detailed investigation (all in German) about browsers (mobile, desktop). When you watch your browser with RethinkDNS (or similar) in background you can see all that still today. And Cromite has indeed been a very quiet browser in the past.
BTW: On desktop (Windows, Linux) I use meanwhile Floorp, which is a Firefox with some welcome builtin extensions, since Librewolf integrated uBlock Origin and tries to plant this on the users all the time. I don’t like this, I need more flexibility and much more granularity in what is blocked and what isn’t and I also don’t want chains of blockers (using then the same block lists …)
I agree about Brave, when I had got it a few years ago it was quite ‘slim’ and easy to configure to make it ‘quiet’ as You say. Now it grew and more difficult to ‘contain’, hence I was very happy to leave it behind with my google infected android old phone and get e browser as the secondary one with duckduckgo as the main choice.
Duckduckgo is a browser, they say they use ads respecting privacy… my Proton VPN blocks them.
On the PC I used to have Superbird Browser but it looked like not updated anymore and plenty of things stopped working on it.
P.S. I don’t like the latest dckduckgo, previous versions were better. Now going in Brave direction I’m afraid 
and I switch off the AI features…
One option seems at least to be to use the Titanium browser (from App Lounge). Titanium is a fork of Vanadium and Vanadium is the hardened Graphene fork of Chromium. Titanium is currently 151.
This tool may help you choosing the one that fits your needs:
It does for many people and that’s good so. I used Librewolf for about two years, I know it very well, no need to convince me – I chose Floorp (with some self installed extensions). And I’m rather sure I achieve a very similar list of green checkmarks as Librewolf does.
Well yes it is a “browser” but it uses the Android system webview to render pages (unlike Brave, Firefox etc which use their own engine). So its “security” directly depends on that of e/OS webview….which is outdated (at least in 4.2). This is not the case with “true” browsers (i.e. having their own rendering engine).
As I said above (12d ago) Titanium is an interesting replacement for Cromite in every aspect. I’m testing since then. It does exactly what you expect and nothing else. It gets also regular updates done by App Lounge or Aurora.
The only ungood feature of all these Chrome-based mobile browsers seems to be accessing the bookmarks - I can’t explain why this is so cumbersome taking about five taps.
Well, on the other hand duckduckgo has a clever approach, it can be more ‘lite’ and you do not need to update the browser that often provided your system webview is up to date with “security”!
I can imagine a situation where some OS is up to date more than Brave or Firefox and unless you update the browser you are behind. You cannot win,can you?
Depending on the system webview is not that bad an idea, which takes us back to the other topic where webview on e/OS has been discussed… 
This is what the developper of DivestOS wrote a few years back regarding Webview browsers. I guess some of it (if not all) is still valid nowadays…
“These browsers must be combined with an up to date WebView provider to be secure.
If you are on stock/OEM version of Android or have Google Apps installed, you are likely using the Google/Chrome WebView with extra telemetry.
While WebView browsers utilize the Chromium WebView, they cannot offer any per-site process isolation.
Using any WebView-based browser is largely not recommended as they are inherently limited due to the WebView merely being a widget for adding web content to an app and are not intended to create a full browser experience.”
So as you said, you need the system webview to be uptodate (which is the big problem with e/OS) but even then you still lack per-site process isolation. That is (probably) why DuckDuckGo doesn’t fair as well as e.g. Brave in this privacy test.
Well, maybe but I find Brave too complicated and I like Duckduckgo more, the matter of personal preference. I use Brave as a secondary browser on my PC and used to keep it on my mobile but now /e/ browser became my secondary one on the handset (you can’t uninstall it and I don’t want 3 browsers which would make it a crowd). Brave prevents fingerprinting and Duckduckgo is best for private search they say.
I didn’t know that, thanks!
EDIT: Is Cromite a good choice? I would currently switch to another Chromium browser
sure, /e/OS should just package or install Firefox, imo - but it’s the webview that is critical and exposes users to a big surface for apps to fingerprint. There’s no non-chromium webview, geckoview never implemented all APIs.
If the effort was spent to modify a browser for the webview, you can as well package with the “chrome” (the ui, preferences..).
I had some contact with the way cromite patches (via policy prefered) and /e/os imports a selection. Uazo rebases the whole intertwined patchset to each chrome version. It’s just not a fun way to work with code.
When the summer is over I wonder what uazos doubts were to reconsider the direction.
Little tricks if you wish to have browser open up to your bookmarks direct for Homepage on startup:
settings> homepage > chrome://bookmarks
Can also have it more direct to a particular bookmark folder. For example with above it will list the folders like Bookmarks bar, Mobile bookmarks, etc.
I set mine as:
chrome-native://bookmarks/folder/1
Where “1” is the top folder listed, and opens to my Bookmarks bar direct