Even with countless hours of customization and trying out different settings and digging around configuration files, my chromium did not manage to scroll without tearing (nvidia with nonfree drivers)

Don't blame the user. The experience is bad, and should be called out for it. Many things about linux just suck, and deserve to be called out. Dont defend shitty software, just because you like it and it 'just works for you', or because it is open source.