Dispatches from Safe Mode: Google Chrome is the worst browser ever made

[deriksmith]

Preramble

I picked up a virus on… fridayish.
I call it a virus- I suppose technically it’s considered adware. My web searches get routed through ad sites instead of Google. Or my Google searches appear to go through- but any attempt to go to those sites instead gets routed through an ad-site. (It’s most annoying.)

Now, I picked up this virus

Comments

In fairness....

[anonymous]

My thoughts, in no particular order, are:

• Chrome is far and away the fastest browser out there, and I love how each tab has its own process to insulate it from the others.

• As much as I wish it weren't so, privacy in this day and age is an illusion.

• Google has done no wrong by me so far, so I spend my energy worrying about other things.

But my question is, when you do "incognito window", do all of these tracking behaviors still persist?

~ Botch

[anonymous]

Hmm. I personally ended up not using Chrome myself because I couldn't figure out what was supposed to be so special about a browser with no features or customization possibilities (that I could see anyway).

I mean, I dunno... I could see if being fine if you just want to browse and nothing else, as Firefox isn't a stripped-down just-a-basic-browser any longer, so Chrome fits that role well. But then you've got the ultra-geeky types who you'd expect to do far more online than just surf webpages singing it's praises, and that's when I start wondering if I'm missing something here.

But at any rate, finding out that I'm apparently also avoiding major privacy issues by not using Chrome is an added bonus. Think I'll stick with Opera...

-Jeysie

[jarodrussell]

No, what squicks me on Chrome is the RLZ thing.

By way of cookies, history, and IP address, Google already owned your search history before RLZ.

[deriksmith]

But this isn't just search history. It's direct-surfing. If I type www.libertarianparty.com (random example of a political affiliation that can earn a FBI file) in Chrome, Google know I'm going there even though I didn't go through Google to get there and the LP doesn't have Google ads or Google analytics enabled.

Not only that, every letter I typed was bounced off of Google's search-suggest engine. and while packet-sniffing isn't exactly hard... this creates a nice standardized format that's much more easily readable at every step between myself and Google. It's (and I think this is fair) the equivalent of putting the subject on the outside of every letter you send through the mail system-- so dozens of mail-carriers know exactly what you're looking at. It makes it easy.

And finally, while it used to be that if you took pain to clear cookies and logged onto an anonymous network, you had an expectation of reasonable anonymity. The RLZ code blows that out of the water. "Unique identifier sent every time you search or even type

[jarodrussell]

But this isn't just search history.

I don't mean search history, I mean browser history. I'm pretty sure there's JavaScript out there that'll read through your history and cookies, to post it back to Google so they know where you've been. If you go to any site with Google code on the page, they could1 read through your history to build a profile based on your current IP, history, cookies and/or accounts. You'd have to clear history and cookies between every page to be sure they didn't track you.

(1. I say "could" and not "can" because I don't know if they do it, but it doesn't seem beyond them.)

BTW, Google DNS.

[deriksmith]

But-- those "hundreds of DNS lookups a day" are all tiny and cached! The only time you'd ever have to do several DNS lookups for a single page is if assets are loaded off multiple servers!

But of course, letting Google replace your DNA cache means they know what domains you visit and how frequently. Even if they're out-network. Even if you're not using Chrome.

...I hate this, I thought Google wasn't supposed to be evil. :(
There is no reason for this service to exist except to snoop your activity. You derive absolutely zero benefit from it.

*sigh*

[thete1]

:(

Thank you? Ow? Gah? I guess there had to be some downsides to living in the future.

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