Here goes the second round of my Google Chrome review, mainly consisting of links to news and discussions.
Chrome Phone Home
Maybe you heard (I hear it was even on TV?) that Chrome loves E.T. and likes to phone home. Yes, it does, but not that much more so than other browsers: Google’s Matt Cutts has the details. (Yes, I added that link to the other post later on as well).
Selection mine, he has a few more points:
If you’re just surfing around the web and clicking on links, that information does not go to google.com.
If you are typing a search or url in the address bar, Google Chrome will talk to the current search service to try to offer useful query/url suggestions.
Google Chrome checks for automatic updates every 25 hours.
Every 30 minutes, Google Chrome downloads a list of 32-bit url hashes of urls thought to be dangerous (malware or phishing).
Essentially, the same as every other browser. And less than IE, who sends URLs to Microsoft for Malware checks if you opt in (and doesn’t have a malware filter if you don’t). Their Internet Explorer Privacy Statement reads:
If you opt in, addresses not on the legitimate list will be sent to Microsoft and checked against a frequently updated list of websites that have been reported to Microsoft as phishing, suspicious, or legitimate websites.
Terms of Use
Another outcry in the community (details here at TapTheHive) was about Google’s terms of use, in particular the lengthy part 11 which allowed Google to use all data anybody ever entered in Chrome, basically. They’re not the first ones with evil TOS, but the ones that were watched best I guess, with the paranoia that I partially share and all. They changed it, it now reads:
11. Content license from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.
The German version didn’t change yet, but the English version works retroactively for people who accepted the old one as well.
More, Way More
I guess everybody wants to see more objective data as to whether Chrome’s speed really is better than that of Firefox (let’s not talk about IE). It is, slightly: Speed tests! But the Firefox team is working on a faster JS engine.
Then, a funny little exploit to crash all of Chrome’s tabs (via der-link.de).
And finally, interoperability: Get the best of Chrome’s features in Firefox via, who’d have thought, plugins (I didn’t know a few of those). And, associative art with the Chrome logo – is there a hidden message somewhere (via Basic Thinking)?
Update 08-09-12 10:59: Yesterday’s news (well, actually, from the 8th), Google now anonymizes the 2% of traffic they log from Google Suggest after only 24 hours. And since this addition will send another trackback to the Google Blog, hello in advance 
