Is Google planning to install software without your permission on your computer?

Is Google planning to do an Apple?

May be!

When you install Google Chrome, Google slips in another application called the Google Update and Google sets up this application to automatically start up. Again, Google never asks for permission to install this piece of software and Google never asks if you want to allow this application to run at start up. Now, tell me why this is not spyware?

Even more interesting is the description of the GoogleUpdate.exe application. Have a look at this:

The ‘File description’ field says ‘Google Installer’. Is Google planning to install even more software without your explicit permission? Just like Apple did with Safari using Apple Update?

Google is Evil. Much more evil than Microsoft ever was and ever will be.

Why I uninstalled Google Chrome (and Google Chrome is spyware).

I uninstalled Chrome because Google Chrome is spyware. After uninstalling it, Google opened a feedback page, requesting for feedback. This is what I wrote:

1. You spy on me. Why do you have to associate each Chrome installation with a unique ID?
2. You spy on me. You indicate that you collect data, but not anonymously. So it is personally identifiable data.
3. You spy on me. So Google Chrome is spyware.
4. You spy on me. You import data from other browsers, including passwords, without asking.
5. When I use Chrome, my computer slows down to a crawl. Are you spying on me again?
6. When I uninstalled Chrome, you opened this feedback page in Internet Explorer, while my default browser is set to Firefox.

Really disappointed with Google and its obsession with spying on people and not being open about it. So much for Google’s Open Source bullshit when it’s not even open with its communication.

Google Chrome’s window border too thick

With the Vista ‘Border Padding’ set to 1, Firefox’s border looks like this:

Google Chrome’s windows border looks like this:

Notice how Chrome’s window border doesn’t respect the set border size. Something for Google to fix. The problem is especially apparent when the Border Padding is set to zero — Chrome’s window border looks just odd then.

Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer memory usage comparison.

Google Chrome has a cool built-in feature that lists the memory usage of all currently running browsers. This can be accessed by bringing up the Chrome Task Manager using Shift+Esc and then clicking on ‘Stats for nerds’. Or just type ‘about:memory’ into the Chrome Omnibar.

So I thought I would do a simple memory usage comparison by opening my most frequently used web applications.

Tab 1: Google Gmail (https://gmail.google.com)

Tab 2: Google Reader (https://www.google.com/reader)

Tab 3: Google Calendar (https://www.google.com/calendar)

I opened the same 3 tabs in Google Chrome (beta), Mozilla Firefox 3.01 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 (Beta 2) and then opened the memory page in Chrome.  All three browser sessions were started afresh.

Looking at just the ‘Private’ memory column, IE8 is a memory hog while Chrome and Firefox use similar amounts of memory.

I am pretty impressed at how well the Chrome beta works compared to IE8 beta 2.

Download Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome

Download Firefox: http://www.firefox.com

Download IE8 beta2: http://www.microsoft.com/ie8

Chrome is currently available for Windows XP and Vista only. Mac and Linux versions are on the way.

IE8 is available for Windows XP and Vista only.