Chrome

[Corinthian]

Anyone here going to download and use Google's Chrome for browsing the net? Just knew today that Google will be launching a web browser.

 

Curiousity about it led me to this: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2329246,00.asp

Edited September 2, 2008 by TomasCTT

[Ivanhoe]

I might try it, but ain't expecting much. I pretty much do expect it to be primarily spyware for Google's ad business. And with handy censorship plug-ins for Mandarin, Cantonese, and Korean.

[5150]

Innovation and competition are rarely bad things. Web browsers have been pretty stale for years. Chrome is a good thing.

[Sikkiyn]

Using at the moment and to-date have found only 1 problem. Normally to fast-scroll a page I click my center mouse-wheel. For some reason Chrome is not allowing me to do this, so I have to finger the mouse-wheel a little each time to make a large page move quickly.

[yuval]

unbelievably fast browsing, the javascript virtual machine is amazing.

0.5MB installation?!?! how the hell did they manage that?

 

i like.

[beans4]

Just started this morning. I read it's the top browser memory hog when running multiple tabs, but with only one tab it's quite fast. As Ivanhoe said, I suspect it's primary function is to phone home about what I'm doing on the net.

[Mike Steele]

That and it has this little gem:

http://gizmodo.com/5044871/google-chrome-e...posts-to-emails

[m1a1mg]

Interesting look and feel. Does run very fast though.

[Marek Tucan]

Dunno, seems a bit slower than Mozilla for me, but like the rather minimalistic look.

Btw don't type :% into URL line, it'll crash

[Sikkiyn]

Noticed a really annoying trait.

Whenever I shut all outgoing communications off at my firewall, Chrome will attempt an outbound UDP transmission every 10sec, trigger the firewall alarm.

I have tried everything to stop Chrome from doing this, but no option has been found at this time, outside of blocking all communications (period).

 

 

Strongly considering uninstalling it.

[Sardaukar]

Colleague had some of more "geeky" aquintances to do little bit of checking and based on what they said I will not touch it.

 

Looks like sort of Google spy tool to me..

[Sikkiyn]

Colleague had some of more "geeky" aquintances to do little bit of checking and based on what they said I will not touch it.

 

Looks like sort of Google spy tool to me..

 

I purged it shortly after my last post. After removing any program that had Google associated with it, I physically had to go into the registry and spent 30 min purging every location that Google touched by hand -- and then it finally stopped trying to communicate through a blocked firewall.

[Fritz]

Doesn't want to run on my x64 XP.

 

Also there's an answer to the privacy concerned

 

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-chrome-communication/

 

 

Me? I see no reason to switch from firefox.

Edited September 7, 2008 by Fritz

[DesertFox]

Right now, Firefox works......Switched to it because it was better and simpler than Netscape (Was a longtime Netscape user before) and don't trust Microsoft with IE

[Ssnake]

It seems that Chrome simply copies most of the good features of Firefox and (especially) Opera, down to the very layout of tabs & such in Opera. It adds the superior JavaScript engine, and invades your privacy in an unprecendented way (but hey, they're not evil, right?). So, right now I see no reason to dump Opera. I've been using it for years, and I guess the highest compliment is being copied.

 

So, if you think that there has been no competition on the browser market, get out from under your rocks and have a look at Opera. Most of the Chrome benefits, a more mature software, and none of the privacy issues.

[Tim the Tank Nut]

I've used Opera for years and really like it a lot.

[Gregory]

It seems that Chrome simply copies most of the good features of Firefox and (especially) Opera, down to the very layout of tabs & such in Opera. It adds the superior JavaScript engine, and invades your privacy in an unprecendented way (but hey, they're not evil, right?). So, right now I see no reason to dump Opera. I've been using it for years, and I guess the highest compliment is being copied.

 

So, if you think that there has been no competition on the browser market, get out from under your rocks and have a look at Opera. Most of the Chrome benefits, a more mature software, and none of the privacy issues.

 

After reading link in Fritz's post, I don't understand what are the pernicious privacy issues?

 

I mean, besides the point 8.7 in EULA "Google Chrome will automatically archive all pr0n you access and send it to Google headquarters every 24 hours.", it looks pretty innocuous.

Edited September 23, 2008 by Gregory

[Ssnake]

After reading link in Fritz's post, I don't understand what are the pernicious privacy issues?

Upon installation, Chrome generates a unique ID number which is retained after uninstallation and re-installation. As long as Chrome is installed on a single user computer, that ID number is a better personal identifier than IP numbers from your ISP's dynamic address block. It is unclear how often this ID number is transmitted to Google, but they're not known for not collecting data. Chrome generates a time stamp on installation. Not sure why that is a bad thing, but not sure why it's needed either. The "suggest" feature transmits partially typed in web addresses to Google to fetch possible addresses that begin with the same or a similar text string. It's similar with the "Alternate Error Pages" - instead of a simple 404 error you get redirected to a Google server. Like Microsoft with Windows and crashing applications, Google likes to know details about the operating system and system memory when Chrome crashes. It's one thing to trust your operating system manufacturer (if you don't trust THEM, whom?), it's another to trust a company whose privacy statement can be reduced to "We're not evil, trust us!" without significant information loss. Microsoft has several hundred managers dedicated to privacy policy implementation and supervision, Google has one. single. guy. for all of this. RLZ-Tracking transmits data in encoded form to Google, like (but not limited to) from where you downloaded Chrome, and when. The Google updater is another background service, launched on system start. But hey, no problem, you already have a dozen of them from Windows, Adobe, ... so where's the big deal. Finally there's the URL tracker.

 

The question boils down to whether or not you trust a company and all its employees to follow Sergey's mantra not to be evil, given that Google is traded at public stock exchanges with mandatory quarterly revenue reports. Google's business model is to gain as much influence as possible over information access, and to exploit their unique know-how of user habits and user preferences. The individual mouse click is harmless, but whether that still is the case if you collect and aggregate billions of mouse clicks is very much the question. Google owns companies with about the worst privacy policies in internet history, e.g. Doubleclick, the guys who brought you personally identifiable cross-site cookies and other panacea of online marketing. Yeah, I'm sure, they're all good guys now.

[Murph]

Our IT guys have forbidden Chrome and Chrome OS from any county owned system since it "phones home" to Google everything you do according to them. Firefox and IE are the only allowed browsers, along with Windows 7. Chrome supposedly spies on you for Google, and they have our system pretty locked down. Anyone else have any data on privacy issues with Chrome/Chrome OS? Plus I am not happy with an OS where everything has to be sent to Google Drive to store. I want my information on MY hard drive where I can secure it.

[Archie Pellagio]

To meet your pre-req's Murph, you've pretty much got to travel back to 2007 or earlier.

 

The sheeple have accepted en masse industrial spyware (and yep, I'm one of them, begrudgingly or not) on their personal details.

As for work stuff, I would imagine a PD would have to have some sort of firewall or means of restricting open internet, not simply having PC's hooked into the big wide world?

[m1a1mg]

Google sells data to make money. In exchange for fairly generic user data, they give me free stuff. I'm good with that.

 

If the IT guys are worried, they better not use any Windows OS. Like most, they are probably just doing feel good security.