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Super-user privileges for Chromium browser

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After apt-get install chromium and running it on Debian 12, ps alx | grep -e ^F -e ^5.*chromium returns:
F   UID     PID    PPID PRI  NI    VSZ   RSS WCHAN  STAT TTY        TIME COMMAND
5  1000 3452315 3452313  20   0 33884428 16712 do_sys S  ?          0:00 /usr/lib/chromium/chromium --type=zygote --crashpad-handler-pid=3452306 --enable-crash-reporter=,built on Debian 12.4, running on Debian 12.4 --change-stack-guard-on-fork=enable
This executed on LUbuntu 18 after apt-get install chromium-browser (which does snap install chromium in its /var/lib/dpkg/info/chromium-browser.preinst):
F   UID     PID    PPID PRI  NI    VSZ   RSS WCHAN  STAT TTY        TIME COMMAND
5  1000  197953  197951  20   0 33909972 1228 do_sys S   ?          0:00 /snap/chromium/2729/usr/lib/chromium-browser/chrome --type=zygote --crashpad-handler-pid=197944 --enable-crash-reporter=,snap --change-stack-guard-on-fork=enable
where the flag F value 5 means _used super-user privileges_ according to man ps. **Why does the Chromium browser need and get super-user privileges when installed by the regular package management and run by a non-privileged user ?** ChatGPT says this would be for installation or updating, but I don't believe that because I did installation using regular apt-get and updates would be done by unattended-upgrades on Debian or snapd on Ubuntu.
Asked by Juergen (754 rep)
Jan 20, 2024, 11:16 AM
Last activity: Jan 22, 2024, 03:28 PM