I’m a Google and Chrome fan because of their tools and the simplicity and performance they adhere to—apart from search this is exactly what the company and it’s engineers have excelled at and has for many years. However untangling the browsers privacy issues to give you more personal freedom is a different art all together.

Google’s browser Chrome is lightweight, responsive and performs fantastically even when browsing many tabs at once. We can thank  the Chromium Open Source project for giving users more stable, faster and safer web experiences.

Having said that, with the increasing amount of hackers compromising individuals and other companies information, it’s important to think of how to protect companies & individuals from snooping on your personal privacy. It’s quite obvious that Google’s interface to their users is the web and web browsers, while Apple’s is the screen. That is why you as an end user using Google (or any other product for that matter) should understand how their privacy policy and terms work, and in this case especially for the browser. Have you ever looked? You should go ahead and read through the notice if you haven’t.

One should realize that maybe Google Chrome’s policy is not good at all when you realize:

• If you use Google Chrome, Google will know every URL you type into the location bar.
• Google will know (almost) every partial URL you type into the location bar.
• Moreover, they will know every word or phrase you type into the location bar, even if you type it and then delete it before pressing enter.
• They will also know every word or phrase you type into the location bar, even if you type it and then delete it before pressing enter.
• All this information can be linked with your main Google account, because Google sends your cookie along with every automatic search it performs from the location bar.

If you are at all doubtful that they actually do this then try downloading fiddlr (A web debugging proxy), and shows that for nearly every character you type, Chrome sends a request back to Google.

At least they give you options to disable their data collection services, the only problem is most of your average users don’t understand what’s really going on “under the hood.” It’s wise to get an understanding about how they collect data and then try to tweak it for better privacy results. Anonymity matters to me for these simple reasons, and I think they should matter to you as well:

• Prevent people from watching and learning what sites I visit and my physical location.
• Protect your communications from irresponsible corporations.
• Protect your privacy from unscrupulous marketers and identity thieves.

How can I tweak my privacy so that Google and third parties don’t receive all my data?

1. First get to grips with how Google uses your data which they say is just standard log information collected and used to further help improve the user’s experience. Fair enough, however, each Google Chrome installation contains a unique ID that identifies its user, and for the average user it’s tough to remove that ID.  So the first task is to do this. You can easily achieve your goal by using UnChrome to anonymize yourself.
2. Cookies. Are they safe? This is an endless debate, but the fact remains that near to all websites use them to track and remember you so turning them off could lead to unexpected results when browsing with cookies on.
   After you click on the little wrench on the top-right side of the browser, goto options > under the hood > content settings and check “Ignore exceptions and block third=party cookies from being sent. This will help you block those third party vendors from tracking you.
3. If you have read this article you should know that this is where Chrome learns the most about you, by logging your data. They even say that they use only 2% of the data they receive, along with the IP addresses of it’s users in Chrome.  To disable these features goto little wrench on the top-right side of your browser, goto options > under the hood and disable these features:
   
4. Google uses the omnibox (search address bar) to help you search faster—no other browser has this feature and at first glance it’s really cool. Goto the little wrench on your browser > options > basics and disable Instant for faster searching and browsing.
   
5. Concurrently you may also disable the Chrome Auto-fill options and never save passwords, or prompt the user if you’d like to save your password for a particular site. You may also set your default search engine to Bing or Yahoo, but know that if you do this then they will receive your data (whatever’s left of it after you have tweaked) instead of Google.

Recently, Google has announced a couple of interesting new features for its search engine designed to enrich the overall experience.

The first one is called “Search by Image” which allows Google Chrome and Firefox (extension is required) users to search by using an image.

All you have to do is drag and drop the picture into the search box and that’s it, Google will figure out the rest (including location) and display somewhat relevant search results.

Remember the old feature in old Netscape browsers that prefetched links on a page so that when you clicked on it, the page would load from your cache instantly? Google's Instant Pages seems like that. More »

Gmail added drag-and-drop image insertion last year, but they've pumped up Gmail's image-sharing features even more today by adding clipboard support. Now, if you've copied an image from somewhere, you can paste it right into Gmail's Compose window to send it. This currently only works in Google Chrome, though Google says they hope to add it to other browsers soon. [Official Gmail Blog] More »

Google Chrome's stable release has now reached version 12, bringing hardware acceleration for 3D CSS, better in-browser privacy for the built-in Adobe Flash Player, and safer downloads. Chrome 12 will automatically scan downloads to check for malicious files, warning users when they're found. With the new updates comes a loss, though, as Gears is now officially kaput—which means no more offline Gmail access for Chrome users. The update will automatically take place over the next couple of days. [Download Google Chrome via Google Chrome Blog]More »

Good news, Google has just released the stable version of Google Chrome 12, which can be downloaded from the following page.

The following version not only fixes a total of 12 security related vulnerabilities and rewards bug hunters with a total of $6837, but also includes some neat new features. Including but not limited to: 3D CSS hardware acceleration, ability to delete Flash cookies, improved screen reader support and protection against malicious downloads.

What else is new?

- Launch Apps by name from the Omnibox
- Integrated Sync into new settings pages
- New warning when hitting Command-Q on Mac
- Removal of Google Gears

If you would like to experience the excitement of the 3D CSS, there is a special Google Experiment titled “Shaun the Sheep“, which allows you to rotate and scale the video as well as enable the reflection.

Download.

Chrome: This free dictionary extension from Google lets you view definitions from within web pages you visit. Just double-click a word to see its meaning in a pop-up bubble or get in-age translation of a foreign word.More »

Google Chrome is a favorite among power users in no small part due to its innovative experimental features (many of which are eventually integrated into the stable browser). For our final installment of the best of Google Labs, we're taking a look at the best experimental, advanced features you can add to Google Chrome.More »

The tablet-computer race is heating up. The latest entrant, Acer Inc.’s Iconia Tab A500, is the first to offer compelling competition to Apple’s dominant iPad in one crucial area: price.

The Iconia Tab has been keenly anticipated, if only because Acer, a Taiwanese company that made its mark by offering sharp but inexpensive laptops and netbooks, is the world’s second-largest PC maker after Hewlett-Packard Co. The Iconia Tab is Acer’s first to run Google’s Android operating system, and joins an increasingly crowded tablet field that features the PlayBook by Research in Motion Ltd., Motorola Inc.’s Xoom, LG Electronics Inc.’s G-Slate and Apple’s own iPad2, which went on sale in March.

A WiFi-only version of the Iconia Tab went on sale on April 24 for $449.99. A new model that works on AT&T Inc.’s 4G wireless network is slated for release this summer for an as-yet-undisclosed price.

A new option's shown up in Chromium builds that allows users to choose what type of cached personal data should be encrypted as it's sent to Google's cloud. Until now, only saved passwords have been encrypted, but the new option would conceivably cover everything from saved form data, like credit card numbers, to Omnibar auto-completions and what extensions are installed. [Browser Scene]More »

Windows only.

If you are up for a new experience and don’t mind potential phishing sites threat, then Google Chrome 13 Canary might be the browser to get as its latest release includes an option to hide the URL bar.

How do you enter the URL?

For user to access the mentioned text box he or she must click on a browser tab and bingo, it reappears.

How to hide the bar?

Enter about:flags in the address bar
Find compact option and enable it
Right click on the tab bar and select “Hide the toolbar”

What do you think? Useful or useless?

With the recently announced Google Chrome promotion, here comes another video from the search giant and this one features Lady Gaga (oh no).

According to TNW, Internet Explorer is the only modern web browser (Opera was not tested due to temporary issue with the test page) that is not affected by the recently found memory leak.

One of the developers has created a test site with the Google’s App Engine to demonstrate the issue.

Once the site is back online, users can reproduce the bug by following these steps:

- Request an image from a server.
- Image result contains “Cache-Control: no-store”.
- Display the image.

Instead of freeing allocated memory, none of the tested web browsers did that. Here are his tests results:

Safari 5: Failed
Firefox 4.x: Failed
IE 7/8/9: Passed

As THB said, No-Store attribute was created so browsers would not store image on the local disk. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Furthermore, it looks like the issue is not OS related and was confirmed by both Windows and Linux users.

So here you have it folks, today Microsoft has a good reason to smile about.

Once again, the way to buy music is changing.

For years, the legal digital music world has seemed relatively simple to grasp. There were two basic models: the online stores, where you buy singles or albums and store them on individual computers or devices; and the subscription services, where you pay a monthly fee or listen to ads for access to an online trove of songs.

If you are looking for a great way to boost your productivity by blocking certain sites and the specific time of the day, then Google Chrome or Firefox are the browsers to user.

LeechBlock

LeechBlock is a Firefox extension which allows you to block up to six time-wasting web sites at different times of the day or limit the time you surf them.

StayFocusd

StayFocusd is a Google Chrome extension which will enable you not only to block various web pages, but also restrict the amount of time you use them.

Works with all web browsers.

Not interested in going through all Angry Birds levels, one by one? Worry no more; there is a solution for that.

To unlock all levels, type the following code in the address bar

javascript: var i = 0; while (i<=69) { localStorage.setItem(‘level_star_’+i,’3′); i++; } window.location.reload();

Revert

javascript: var i = 1; while (i<=69) { localStorage.setItem(‘level_star_’+i,’-1′); i++; } window.location.reload();

Enjoy.

Q:

Is there software available to allow one to run Apple-compatible apps on Android tablets?

A:

None of which I’m aware. However, bear in mind many of the most popular apps for the iPhone are now available in versions for Android phones. My guess is that, over time, if Android tablets start selling in large numbers, the same phenomenon is likely to occur, with at least the top apps for the iPad being issued in versions for Android tablets.

Q:

I subscribe to 10 magazines. When I want to save an article I tear it out and file it away. I was wondering if there is another way to save articles by faxing/photocopying them and sending them as an attachment to a remote site accessible anywhere in the world. I would be willing to pay for the site but it has be easy to use.

A:

Chrome: The new Google Tasks Chrome extension is perfect for any Tasks user, providing quick access to your to-dos and effortless task creation right from the keyboard. More »

In today’s Google I/O keynote, it was revealed that Google Chrome now has 160 million active users. That’s twice as many users as reported last May (70 million)!

Furthermore, the company has promised major web browser improvements in the upcoming few months, such as: more developer APIs, speech support and more.