Google Chrome web browser

[Warboy]

I'll post the same link again for you:
Google's Omnibox could be Pandora's box.

That doesn't show it's on google's servers, It's just saved under recent history then pulled up as a auto-suggestion feature. if you clear your history, it goes away.

Honestly, You guys need to be so worried about such subjects. If they wanted your data, They would have it without you knowing and Not put it in some Auto-Suggestion Feature of their browser.

OMGZ THY R SPYIN ON MEZ. SPY SAPPING MY BROWSER.

For some reason I just don't trust google, other than using their search engine from time to time I will NOT install any of their software.

1) Google Desktop = Bloatware, in fact does anyone know what this is supposed to do other than come preinstalled on all NEW Dell PC's?
2) Google Toolbar = Spyware
3) Chrome, from what I have read = buggy, bloated, spyware and arguably malicious
4) Google Earth = not bad actually, in fact quite good, albeit a bit creepy when you think about the "Google" collecting all these images of the world...
5) Google Streets...hmmm even more creepy than google Earth, in fact I would go so far as to say that THIS invades privacy.

Does anyone else get the slight gut feeling that Google could be the "commercial" public front to the CIA, or the NSA or maybe some other sort of US government organisation?
John

Google Desktop is Like Windows Search. It acts the same and everything.

[Marvin_The_Martian]

Let's be honest, what the US government does with their knowledge is not the same as any other agency. Given the recent changes in policy and snooping permits (not really requiring permits now), other countries still do not have laws that violate your rights as much as the states. Most countries don't give a damn about your data (unless its china).

The way I feel about US internet data policy is: I'd rather have my data go through germany, denmark, and china than the US (well UK is pretty bad too, but google doesn't have data warehouses there). But thats just me.

True, but here in the Netherlands if they expect you to have terrorist bonds they can get taps on you without a court order as well. The Dutch people are just not that aware their privacy is invaded so much almost as much as they don't seem to care. Maybe we're one of the few people who seem to agree with the notion; I got nothing to hide so please waiste your time going through my garbage.

I honestly think that last sentence holds allot of truth

[JohnZS]

I still would not be surprised if Google ARE connected to the CIA or some other such US government organisation.

Think about it, over the years Google has established a "soft and cuddly" brand name which many people blindly trust. Ironically browsing a few forums and news sites which have reported the release of Chrome brings up many people saying

"Everything google does is great"
"Google are amazing"

In fact it's fair to say Google have more Fanboys than ATi, nVidia or AMD!

As they found out in Troy....beware of the Trojan horse....could Google (or Chrome) really be the Trojan horse of modern times?

John

[Helmore]

I still would not be surprised if Google ARE connected to the CIA or some other such US government organization.

There is some partial truth to that as Google has had to hand over some information to the US government at some point in the past.

On Wednesday, January 18, 2006, the U.S. Justice Department filed a motion to compel in United States district court in San Jose seeking a court order that would compel search engine company Google Inc. to turn over, "a multi-stage random sample of one million URL’s", from Google’s database, and a computer file with, "the text of each search string entered onto Google’s search engine over a one-week period (absent any information identifying the person who entered such query)."[59] Google maintains that their policy has always been to assure its users privacy and anonymity, and challenged the subpoena. On March 18, 2006, a federal judge ruled that while Google must surrender 50,000 random URLs, the Department of Justice did not meet the necessary burden to force Google to disclose any search terms entered by its users.

There is some more here if you want to read something about "Google Critisism"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google
But in general, Google is willing to pay quite a bit of money just to keep it's users anonymous, like here:

Also, US District Court Judge Louis Stanton, on 1 July 2008 ordered Google to give YouTube user data / log to Viacom to support its case in a billion-dollar copyright lawsuit against Google.[112][113] Google and Viacom, however, on 14 July 2008, agreed in compromise to protect YouTube users' personal data in the $ 1 billion (£ 497 million) copyright lawsuit. Google agreed it will make user information and internet protocol addresses from its YouTube subsidiary anonymous before handing over the data to Viacom

[m^2]

Changing search engine in Chrome actually does prevent Google from getting any search query data from you. The auto-suggest feature that is integrated in the Omnibar actually only works with search engines that support it. I have tried it with different search engines, it does not work with Live Search, but it does work with Wikipedia and Google of course. Also changing what search engine it uses by default is miles easier than it is with IE, in my experience.

OK, so currently exist search engines that you can use to prevent google getting your search data with current version of Chrome. I feel much better, thank you.

That doesn't show it's on google's servers, It's just saved under recent history then pulled up as a auto-suggestion feature. if you clear your history, it goes away.

CNET claims:

What's more, Google has every intention of retaining some of that data even after it provides the promised suggestions. A Google representative told CNET News that the company plans to store about 2 percent of that data--and plans to store it along with the Internet Protocol address of the computer that typed it.

If they store IP, then it's definitely not stored locally.

I got nothing to hide so please waiste your time going through my garbage.

Very sane approach, I like it.
Still, I don't feel comfortable with a big brother looking at me all the time I browse the net though.

[XS Janus]

OK, the scroll function on my HP notebook with Vista SP1 only works on downward scroll direction. Up doesn't work.
And its a little more sensitive.
....

[Marvin_The_Martian]

Very sane approach, I like it.
Still, I don't feel comfortable with a big brother looking at me all the time I browse the net though.

Ok but consider that I said that with the following in mind: the amount of data to shift through it much to large to look at it all.

When I say, go through my garbage, I expect maybe to get looked at a couple of times a year or something because I am either visiting a board with some shady background, or exchange emails with someone 'they' feel should be watched. If that's all the attention my data traffic get's, why should I worry about it?

Now, if some company/organisation is looking at everything I sent my whole life in the hopes of getting something dirty on me, that would invade my feelings of privacy.

But I don't think this is the case, as I said how much traffic goes around the net daily and how many people do you expect to be monitoring it? You would need an 1:1 relationship to really get me worried, and so called 'intelligent traffic sniffers' are imho bs as I don't think their actually that intelligent at all.