Google Chrome

The new web browser on the block. Just downloaded it to my XP virtual machine to try. First impression, it is very simple and clean. None of those thick Menu bar on top for "File, Edit, ..." options. It's just a little box and you can start surfing. Only one setting you need to do on the first start of the browser. It asked if I wanted to keep Google as the default search engine, of course! That was it and I am off surfing.

Now look under the hood, if you are not careful Google captures your surfing behaviour and sends information back to Google for "statistical analysis to improve surfing experience". Right. More like, how do we generate more Ad income from user surfing behaviour. I turned that option off. OK, even though it is turned off but does not mean it is not doing it. Have to do some deep packet analysis.

Setting default web page when I started up the web browser is the most painless amongst the three browsers I used - Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome.

Scary thing is after I installed, it captured my browsing history from Firefox and use the information as Chrome's own. Yikes.

One feature I like, it is called Incognito browser window. What it does is to erase all traces of you surfing a site from your computer. Cool. Now, parents have to figure a new way to check their children's surfing habits. Now, they will need a keylogger either hardware type or software type. Or setup a listener on a different computer with a huge harddrive to capture all the traffic from the children computers to the web; then identify the IP address of the children computers. And from there, install Shark or Ethereal to analyze the traffic when it is put back into human format. Phew... Just wait when kids or some criminals figure this "incognito" browser option out. I can see several applications for all the s#x offenders etc out there. What is Google thinking? Ah, Google did say that if a user downloaded a file using this Incognito browser window, it would be on the harddrive; and the stats and information are still being tracked on the other end, meaning the website servers. Right. If I don't know where you have been on a computer, do you think I will find out who the other end is? Umm...

Nonetheless, this browser seems to be very user-friendly. One thing, it does installed a little application (process) called "GoogleUpdater.exe" in the background to check updates. Right.... Checking updates huh? Hee hee...