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Chrome does not arbitrarily send URLs to Google. We go out of our way to avoid doing that, actually. Look at the implementation of SafeBrowsing, for instance,

Chrome does not arbitrarily send URLs to Google. We go out of our way to avoid doing that, actually. Look at the implementation of SafeBrowsing, for instance, which does some clever work with hashes to ensure that Google never knows exactly what URL you visited that triggered the warning. It would have been _much_ simpler to just send the URLs, I assure you.

rpearl 15y ago
Chrome, or Chromium? One is open source, one really isn't. The set of things that Chrome does is certainly based on Chromium, but Google certainly has the freedom to add some very useful tracking behavior... if they want to. On one, we have source. On the other, we just have the quote "We go out of our way to avoid doing that, actually." What other evidence?
- mikewest 15y ago
  Given that I'm responding to "I'm pretty sure Chrome send URLs to Google at least for indexing purposes." let's first agree that there's been no evidence provided that I can respond to. :) I mean both Chrome and Chromium. The source is there, we develop in the open, and I'm not sure what additional evidence I can provide to you to prove a negative. Wireshark?
  - philfreo 15y ago
    Well the source for Chrome is not open (edit: correction acknowledged - I thought only Chromium was open), though if you are a Chrome developer confidently saying this is impossible then I would give merit to that. My experiences were non-scientific but still gave me enough suspicious to right this. I may try a more rigorous/careful/documented experiment sometime in the future.
    - justinschuh 15y ago
      The source to Chrome is definitely open and you can compile an effectively identical version yourself (minus the branding). There are some closed source plugins (eg. PDF and Flash) that are shipped as dynamic libraries. However, you could disable them (via about:plugins) or simply delete the corresponding binaries from a Chrome distribution and everything remaining would be open source.
      - asadotzler 15y ago
        When you say "effectively identical" do you mean all the preference defaults, all the Google service connection points, etc? Could I do a build from the Chrome source and get a hash match with the release build from Google?

rpearl 15y ago

Chrome, or Chromium? One is open source, one really isn't. The set of things that Chrome does is certainly based on Chromium, but Google certainly has the freedom to add some very useful tracking behavior... if they want to. On one, we have source. On the other, we just have the quote "We go out of our way to avoid doing that, actually." What other evidence?

mikewest 15y ago
Given that I'm responding to "I'm pretty sure Chrome send URLs to Google at least for indexing purposes." let's first agree that there's been no evidence provided that I can respond to. :) I mean both Chrome and Chromium. The source is there, we develop in the open, and I'm not sure what additional evidence I can provide to you to prove a negative. Wireshark?
- philfreo 15y ago
  Well the source for Chrome is not open (edit: correction acknowledged - I thought only Chromium was open), though if you are a Chrome developer confidently saying this is impossible then I would give merit to that. My experiences were non-scientific but still gave me enough suspicious to right this. I may try a more rigorous/careful/documented experiment sometime in the future.
  - justinschuh 15y ago
    The source to Chrome is definitely open and you can compile an effectively identical version yourself (minus the branding). There are some closed source plugins (eg. PDF and Flash) that are shipped as dynamic libraries. However, you could disable them (via about:plugins) or simply delete the corresponding binaries from a Chrome distribution and everything remaining would be open source.
    - asadotzler 15y ago
      When you say "effectively identical" do you mean all the preference defaults, all the Google service connection points, etc? Could I do a build from the Chrome source and get a hash match with the release build from Google?