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Ask HN: Chrome browser phones home, how to disable this?
When I startup Google-chrome it "phones home" - makes a TLS connection to Google and exchnages some data. Does anyone know what this data is?
It happens with the open source version as well... so this must be documented, and there must be a way to turn it off?
Edit: 1. You can confirm this using a network traffic analyzer.
2. Start page is set to about:blank
- opless 11y agoDepends ... are you logging in with it? There's all manner of things that it will do. 1) try to see if there's a real internet connection 2) check if it's the latest version 3) log in with your google account 4) sync passwords 5) update shared history 6) update chrome apps I've probably missed some things out, but that's what I can think of, off the top of my head.
- goodfellaw 11y agothanks.
- w-ll 11y ago> how to disable this? Don't use Chrome? Build Chromium from source. http://www.chromium.org/Home http://www.chromium.org/Home
- 0942v8653 11y ago> It happens with the open source version as well
- w-ll 11y agoBuild Chromium from source. Debug and trace whats "phones home" and yank it out. I dont see why this needs to be a Ask HN.
- goodfellaw 11y ago"Due its complexity, Chromium uses a set of custom tools to check out and build. Here’s an overview of the steps you’ll run: gclient. A checkout involves pulling nearly 100 different SVN repositories of code. This process is managed with a tool called gclient. . . . " // everytime i upgrade a browser? cmon..
- Voltbishop 11y agoI actually build chromium from source for this exact reason, I've gotten it to stop phoning home. It phones home for the following: 1. If you are using the Google APIs (see this picture http://i.imgur.com/UodLpFh.png http://i.imgur.com/UodLpFh.png) for the browser to have more functionality. 2. If you have the "Google account Badge" thingy in the upper right enabled. I don't know exactly what in those two causes the phone home, I assume (educated guess here) that it's verifying your api keys for browser features such as spell check, that or getting the "Badge" thing setup. While you may be opening a new tab labeled blank that "badge" thing is a pure js/html page thats loaded in the background that does need to phone home.
- abstractbeliefs 11y agoHave you looked at intercepting the TLS connection by MITMing yourself? Tools like Fiddler should allow you to see this data in plaintext, though identifying what information it contains is another step.
- stephenr 11y ago> there must be a way to turn it off Sure. Use a browser whose creator isn't an Ad serving company with a business model built entirely around capturing and analysing massive amounts of product (you. you are the product) data.
- techietim 11y agoThere are a set of privacy related patches for Chromium called inox (https://github.com/gcarq/inox-patchset https://github.com/gcarq/inox-patchset). If you are on Arch Linux, binaries are available on the AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/inox-bin https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/inox-bin
- joshmn 11y agoHosts file.
- lemonade 11y agoThis is in all likelyhood "Safebrowsing by Google", which is a default service to run sites you visit past the servers of said company. https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/safebrowsing/diagnostic https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/safebrowsing/diagn... That would make you one of the 600 million people using that service, whether you realise it or not. Alas, other browsers use it too without any warning, although you can turn it off it is not easily discoverable: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=430741 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=430741 As suggested, add sb.google.com or whatever endpoint is used to /etc/hosts or HOSTS file.