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Sunday, October 12, 2008

FSK Asks - Has Anybody Tried Chrome?

Google Chrome was a new browser released with much hype. It has some cool features. However, I'm pretty happy with FireFox. Plus, I've got my FireFox plugins configured the way I want.

I heard there were some invasion of privacy concerns with Google Chrome. Basically, it reports everything you do back to Google.

Has anybody tried Google Chrome? Is it worth switching? I heard that a lot of people tried Chrome and then switched back to FireFox.

I probably should just wait for FireFox to incorporate all the cool features of Chrome, which should take a year or two.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've tried Chrome and to tell you the truth, it's nothing that special. It has some conveniences, for example, you can type in specific keyword in the address bar and it gives you a list of results from which you can choose from.

According to Google, it is faster and more reliable than IE and Firefox, but I'm not so sure about that as I haven't used it that much.

The browser is a lot simpler and therefore it should use less CPU, but it also has its drawbacks - it's still in Beta stages, which means that they're still developing it.

The security issue is worrying. Although Google's motto is "Don't be evil", I am not that big of a fan of Google to hand them all of my browsing history. Sure there are other ways to record it, but giving it away knowingly? No thanks.

I have used Mozilla's Firefox for a number of years now and I'm standing by that choice.

Anonymous said...

FSK, I did like the idea of a browser made by people who know how to make things work, at first.

Then I read the small print. You can turn off every spying feature of Chrome, except one - it will send back to google your typed url, check it against google's list, and them ALLOW me or DISALLOW me to see that url as even existing destination, all in my interest, of course.

Now, you're a smart cookie FSK. I have no doubt you see where it goes. Do we need to submit our freedom to google? Do we need google to decide if a particular url does even exist? Is it not enough that one will not get traffic if he isn't a friend of google? Do we now need google to control if anyone is even reacheable even if a requester knows exact url?

I won't touch this browser with a 12 feet pole.

No one is talking about this, afaik. But antivirus companies are already migrating their business models from being on a user side and protecting a user, to being on a manufacturer and content-provider side and protecting them, at the expence of a user. These companies now police internet, and censure it.

My company uses TrendMicro IGSA hardware. Everything is blocked as a security threat. But I do know this is all a big fat lie. I run NOD32 and all of the downloads that NOD32 doesn't flag (because they are clean) such as keygens and patches, are flagged as security threats by TrendMicro.

I was thinking that maybe TrendMicro is simply incompetent. And sure, they do appear that way screaming and kicking and blocking harmless files. But they also block all the sites that teach you how to break security, how to go around, and those that post true information. There is no treat, other than to the happiness of a police state.

But I digress. Chrome is an even deeper, more systemic attack on our freedoms. Yes, firefox can do that too. But, we would know about it, and that would be a breach of trust.

Google, on the other hand, openly states that it will be the policeman of our freedoms, and no, you can't turn it off.

I think, we must not allow it to be widespread in the first place. If it is, the we have already lost, because millions of people don't care to know the technicalities, and when they want to find out, they will be told that www.googleisapoliceagent.com does not exist.

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