Chrome and privacy

We all agree that also in the Web privacy is only privacy: it needs that doesn't matter if I'm only searching for a landscape's pics site, for a restaurant, for Wilders... my surfing is my privacy always and anywhere, is it ?

So I'm considering to use Chrome - never used before, I use Opera, but it's not fast actually - but I wonder if I 'll fall in the hands of a Big Brother, Google, that will know all my steps in internet.

 

i think it's better to assume there is no privacy anymore and just mostly forget about the whole concept.

i do little things like not accepting 3rd party cookies, blocking javascripts and the likes.
but i don't obsess with that stuff.

if you are a political activist and/or live under a dictatorial regime that might be more of a concern.

 

If you care about privacy then don't use closed source softare. Given recent revelations by Mr. Snowden and Mr. Lavison, nothing that's closed source can be trusted.
If I was you I would switch to Chromium or Firefox.

 

If you truly care about privacy then you might want to avoid Google in general. They are an advertising company first and foremost.

 

You need to avoid, Google, Microsoft and Apple. Opera is also closed sourced so you can't use that one either. Same goes for Windows, iPhone, Adnroid phone, etc.
There is a good starting point is here https://prism-break.org/
But don't get overwhelmed. Go one step at a time. If you don't care about privacy then don't bother switching out of Chrome or blocking any cookies, etc... It's a great browser and cookies give you a rich browser experiance.

 

It doesn't really matter what you use... Your ISP sees all your traffic regardless of browser, OS, whatnot. And that information can potentially be available to anyone.

 

Not if you use VPN. And then if you use VPN + Tor --> Not even NSA can see your traffic.

 

The Iron and Chromium browsers don't have the Google tracking mechanisms that are embedded in Chrome, but they should be 100% compatible with all Chrome extensions. I haven't used Iron in a long time (because I found it quite buggy), but Chromium works well for me.

http://www.chromium.org/Home

 

Perhaps, but I wouldn't be too sure about anything these days...

 

are there any reports of ISP's selling this data yet? seems like its only a matter of time.

 

No idea... but a little thought should tell anyone that almost anything is possible.

 

Well, the meaning of my question is the same for we don't like that any our program call to home if we don't need it. I don't trust Gmail and Google, so my post was more a complain than a question.

 

100% agree. Im still in the process of getting rid off Gmail. I've been using their service for 10 years too. The best way we can stick it up to them is not use them. If enough people do that then they will loose billions and perhaps then things will change.

 

Some ISPs *have* struck deals with commercial third parties, such as advertising networks. It is up to each of us to research our ISP's data sharing practices and continue to keep a close eye on that. Also bear in mind that other intermediaries (a backbone provider for example) will have access to some, possibly even all depending on routes and activity, of one's Internet traffic. This is why people are encouraged to use strong, end-to-end encryption.

There is one thing that has full access to every user's (unencrypted) web browsing activity and Internet traffic in general: their own device and the software that runs on it. So, what you use and how you configure it matters. Tremendously. Edit: How you use that device/software too, of course.

 

Chrome is an excellent browser, just use one of its fork (Dragon, Chromium, etc.).

 

thanks, good info.

 

Which mechanisms are your referring to? Most are the same in Chromium and Chrome and can be deactivated/changed. The only onces I am aware of is the timestamp of your installation and the updater - both are not available in Chromium.

 

Love chrome and its speed, however firefox although a tad slower... is safer its open source, no hidden anything.

 

The auto updater, and "usage-tracking" according to the Chromium website, although I wouldn't trust any closed-source product 100% anyway these days.

Which is why I prefer Chromium over Chrome

 

Chrome is closed source so it can have hidden code. Chromium is open source and so it can be audited.

 

What user-tracking exactly that is not done by Chromium, too?

First of all, the relationship between Chromium and Chrome is described in this blog post (please note that the RLZ mentioned therein is not contained in Chrome if you download it from the original Google download site). The privacy issues are outlined in the Google Chrome Privacy Whitepaper.

The important point is that Chrome is based on the open-source browser Chromium but additionally contains two closed-source components, namely the Adobe Flashplayer and a PDF reader, and it not only supports the open-source codecs Vorbis and Theora (as Chromium does) but also H.264, AAC amd MP3. That's why Chrome cannot be called an open-source browser.

The settings - including the ones affecting your privacy and mentioned in the whitepaper - are basically identical in both browsers. If you leave them at their default values (default search machine, cookie policy, etc.), Chromium tracks you as well.

Apart from the fact that Google is also actually open-source except for the components mentioned above (and thus not in its entirety), you could indeed argue that it might contain additional tracking mechanisms not known to the public. I cannot guarantee that such a suspicion is wrong. However, I haven't seen any hard evidence supporting that claim. You could test it yourself by installing both Chromium and Chrome, using exactly the same settings, performing exactly the same actions, and have a look in the cache if the entries correspond, or - if you want to be thorough - you could use, e.g., Wireshark.

But that also means that you're not running the flashplayer and the PDF reader in the Chrome sandbox. And that's certainly important from a security perspective. If that's okay for you - fine.

 

First time I saw that, I think. Quickly scrolling through it... seems like a decent overview too. Thanks for sharing the link.

Two additional, recently publicly discussed things to factor in: Google is pursuing non-cookie-based, cross-context advertising IDs which it might decide to build into Chrome, and it is making it more difficult to install Chrome extensions from sources other than the Chrome Web Store.

 

Which is exactly why I choose Chrome over Chromium.

btw: ChromiumBrowservsGoogleChrome

note that crash reporting and user metrics can be turned off in Chrome.

 

i prefer Dragon over Chrome because of:

-"no referrer much" simpler to set, just there in Settings.
- connection through Comodo DNS (also in Settings very eary to turn on/off).

 

http://dottech.org/103005/linux-review-chromium-browser/

For me, PDF's aren't an issue, since I have no PDF viewer other than Sumatra installed, with the browser set to download rather than open the files. I also have plug-ins (Flash) blocked by default and don't have Java installed.

Even though the Chrome sandboxing would be nice, based on my low-risk browsing habits (no porn, torrents, etc.), I prefer privacy over security in this case.