CHROME: A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHESY?
Chrome was released in 2008 as an open source, cross-platform web browser by Google. Deriving its (now ironic) moniker from the imagery of fast cars and speed, Chrome came onto the scene promoting itself as an alternative to Microsoft’s proprietary Internet Explorer and its lesser competitor, Firefox. Beyond the faster searching capabilities, the innovative concepts of the Omnibox, tabbed “sandbox” browsing, and synchronization across platforms, are ultimately what caused Chrome to become the most bloated, battery and RAM-hogging browser available today.
OMNIBOX
Originally heralded as one of Chrome’s slickest features, the Omnibox is actually Chrome’s address bar. With a feature that looks at what you type into it, it sends what you’re typing back to Google while Google analyzes and auto-suggests sites. This means Google is tracking your keystrokes and retains part of that information whether you visit an auto-suggested site or not. While the auto-suggest (Google Instant) can be turned off, the tracking of keystrokes and auto-completion of URLs previously visited cannot. Google’s goal here is to be able to better target what ads to throw at you.
TABBED BROWSING
Once seen as an innovative security feature, Chrome’s sandbox (or tabbed) interface has become the browser’s hardware soul sucker. Designed to have independent processes running in each tab or webpage rather than as part of one larger browser process, sandboxing allows for an open tab to crash without affecting any other open tab. However, gone are the days for most of us where we have only one or two, or even just a few tabs open at any given time. The problem here is that the more tabs that are open, the more tracking and the more targeted advertising is going on, thereby eating up your battery life, RAM and CPU.
In Spring of 2020 Microsoft figured out a way to fix Chrome’s RAM usage in Windows 10 by approximately 27%. However, Google disabled the fix citing performance issues.[1] Google claims it is testing experimental features to resolve these issues, but for most of us the effort is too little too late.
[1] https://www.techradar.com/news/google-kills-off-microsofts-ram-saving-feature-for-chrome-on-windows-10
CROSS-PLATFORM SYNCHRONIZATION
After launching more than 1000 extensions in 2010, many of which give Google access to the user’s data once installed, Google shut down the ability to install any extensions that are not on the Chrome Web Store on all Windows and Mac devices less than 5 years later.
Prior to mid-2018 you had the option to access Chrome without signing into any of your other Google apps or extensions. However, since then, every time you access a Google product such as Gmail, Google automatically signs the Chrome browser into your Google account. While Google claims this does not automatically start synching your data to Google, it provides no warning or consent request alerting you to potential synching of your data. if you see your Google profile picture in the upper right-hand corner of the browser, you can bet your information is being synched to Google.
Over the last couple of years Google has transitioned to an API that allows an extension to process rules through the browser rather than the extension itself, thereby decreasing the effectiveness of some ad blocking software. In response to criticism and concerns of Google’s interests in online advertising, Google (in a mostly symbolic gesture) raised the cap on the number of entries that can be blacklisted from 30,000 to 150,000.
Although earlier this year Alphabet (the parent company of Google) has stated they will be developing more privacy-friendly alternatives to third-party cookies, Chrome currently allows thousands more cookies to be stored than other browsers. This is especially true if you are logged into your Gmail account when browsing, as being a major producer of third-party cookies Google has a financial interest in collecting user data.
Through Chrome, Google collects and links to users and their devices significantly more data than any other browser.[2] Currently Chrome has roughly 2/3rds of the worldwide browser market share across all platforms combined (personal computers, mobile and tablets).
75% of the top 1M websites have Google trackers, so even if you do not use Chrome as your browser, Google can still track where you go. And since Google owns YouTube, they know which videos you watch. I’m not even going to get into the tracking capabilities of their Home products. While this tracking doesn’t directly affect performance, it certainly supports the theory that Google has gotten too big for its britches, thereby turning Chrome into the very thing it was originally intended to conquer.
So, if you want to avoid becoming a Chrome statistic, use Safari, Firefox or Edge. All of these alternatives provide a faster, safer and more private browsing experience. I will be reviewing the new features in Microsoft Edge in a subsequent blog, so stay tuned.
Leave A Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.