Is Google Chrome spying all of us?

Sep

2008

Is Google Chrome spying all of us?

chrome So, Google Chrome is here. It is fast, minimalist and nice but, without you knowing, could hide something suspicious. As a matter of fact, lately in the Internet there has been a piece of news, that if true, could change the way you look at Chrome forever. An italian blog has recently tested Chrome by using a program called SilkPerformer. During such a test a web address was typed in Chrome. At this point the program started recording a weird activity. A lot of requests were sent through the Internet, from Chrome to this address: http://clients1.google.it/complete/search. Such requests were sent without the user pressing Enter! For many people such an activity reminds the one which has to do with keyloggers! Keyloggers are malicious programs which record everything you type on your keyboard in order to save precious information about your privacy. Another thing I am curious about is this: is all this data sent through the Web in an encrypted mode or it is visible to everybody? Furthermore, it looks like Chrome sends infos about what you type to Yahoo. com and Ask.com which are two famous search engines…but nothing is sent to Live Search. This is very weird to say the least, since Live Search is owned by Microsoft and doesn’t have any commercial agreement with Google. Waiting for Google to clarify these points…sorry guys to spoil all the excitements about the new G software.

If you want to learn tricks, tips, tweaks etc. about Google Chrome, visit Chrome Section.

Tags: Chrome, news

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8 Comments to “Is Google Chrome spying all of us?”

Vlad K Says:
September 11th, 2008 at 1:42 pm

Are you serious? Maybe you should read up on how autocomplete feature works before labeling it as “weird activity”. Where do you think google is getting the data while you type something into the address box?
Web Talk Says:
September 11th, 2008 at 1:52 pm

Yes, I know but maybe some people don’t like the idea that Google has to “eat” all the data coming from Chrome. Personally speaking I would prefer Google to put among Chrome’s features an option to disable it…maybe it was better if that function was disabled by default and let the users choose.
Lulz Says:
November 6th, 2008 at 7:18 pm

This is silly. Autocomplete must call home in order to y’know, autocomplete. And why would it be encrypted? It’s not like your actual search results will be encrypted in there.

WEIRD ACTIVITY INDEED. I spy with my keen eye, a blogger with absolutely no clue.
Web Talk Says:
November 7th, 2008 at 12:12 am

I am just *reporting* a news here, and the question mark in the title means a rhetorical question on my side. The news here is meant to arise some discussion and stir people’s soul and mind. No clue on my side? Maybe, why not, if this serve the purpose to wake up people around me who, despite know much more than me, don’t make me feel their presence in my blog? With the amount of news I wrote in this blog it is very easy for me to make mistakes and I have no issue to apologize with my readers. In this case I don’t have, since I know the way I wrote this article. Anyway, thanks for being here!
I here you Says:
November 13th, 2008 at 3:39 pm

Right on the money. Big brother is now corporate. Sounds like a scifi movie coming true.
Lelbel Says:
July 12th, 2009 at 7:21 pm

But look at the logo though its a spycamera.Without doubt they are recording our activity and that logo is a sutble way of giving of that message.
Natasha26 Says:
July 10th, 2010 at 1:43 pm

Glad you were able to run Chrome. I couldn’t get pass the installation. ZoneAlarm notified me that the setup wanted to install a something that would run each time my computer was switched on. I cancelled, that so setup threw an error message and closed. Better stick to single-threaded-i-can’t-handle-multimedia Firefox, which is still better than bloated IE8

The problem you’re describing in your article is also exists when you install anti-phishing add-ons. Most of them check addresses you type in or links you’re directed to by sending that data to some remote server for verification. So yeah, data privacy issues, some sort of necessary evil.
Bob Says:
August 28th, 2010 at 5:19 am

This issue is present in Firefox too. Unless you specifically disable the feature, Firefox will send every character you type in the search bar to Google. Yes, Firefox spies for Google as well.

Another common source of spyware in browsers is malware protection. Sometimes a browser will try to “protect” you by sending every URL you try to visit to a “trusted” source, and then that source replies yeah or nay on the malware status.

In Firefox, these can be disabled with certain about:config keys.