Google announced that from March 15 2021 for the open-source version of Google Chrome, Chromium, it is limiting Private API availability.
The main implication of this change is that is no longer possible to sync Chromium bookmarks, tabs, etc. with a Google Account.
On i.a. Arch Linux, Chromium can be installed from the repositories, whereas Chrome can only be installed from the Arch User Repository (a more roundabout way).
Is there a way to re-enable the syncing of a Google Account in Chromium?
Launching Chromium with flags setting a oauth2 ID and secret can re-enable the syncing of Chromium with a Google Account.
The oauth2-client-id should be set to: 77185425430.apps.googleusercontent.com
The corresponding oauth2-secret should be set to: OTJgUOQcT7lO7GsGZq2G4IlT
E.g. on Arch Linux this can be done by creating the file ~/.config/chromium-flags.conf with the contents:
--oauth2-client-id=77185425430.apps.googleusercontent.com
--oauth2-client-secret=OTJgUOQcT7lO7GsGZq2G4IlT
It should be noted that Google recommends against doing this. It is also not clear for how long this workaround will work.
I was looking for syncing Chromium with Google, and I did find another process in the past, but having problems finding it again, as I didn't bookmark it or can't find it in my bookmarks. It involves logging into google, via browser, and adding Chromium in some list to allow it to sync. I guess it is like when you add apps to your account from websites. The problem is, I don't remember where to go to do this and what steps were involved.
Anyway, I just added(Aug-2021) these switches listed on this page to the latest portable chromium 61.0.3153.0 (Official Build) (64-bit), and it worked, which was a lot easier then having to log into Google and add chromium as some kind of permitted app.