how to stop chrome from sending google your data

this is from a user in germany and after going through iron this is a lot of what they have set as default when installed hope this helps out people that want to run chrome but dont want the "bigbrother" issues i know im the type that doesnt want my data being sent..


"How to stop Chrome from sending data to Google

A lot of discussion has been going on about Google´s Browser Chrome that was released recently as a Beta Version. Overall it´s a fine browser, given that it is still in Beta phase, but it didn´t take long for people to discover that Chrome does a lot of stuff that one would love Chrome not to do as it might put your privacy at stake. For one there is the unique Application ID, which is created upon the first Chrome installation and stored in a file on your harddisk. This ID was one of the biggest issues people have their problems with, plus there are a few more things that are generally disliked by users that care about their privacy.

This article will show you a couple of tips on how to disable certain features that might jeopardize your privacy by sending information back to Google. So let´s start with the Application ID

Google Chrome is using a client_id variable in the file Local State which can be found in the user data folder of the chrome installation which is unique for every Chrome user, and which can be used to create exact user profiles of a user’s actions while using Google Chrome.





The Local State file containing the client_id can be found in

1: Documents and Settings\Profle Name\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\
open the file and look for the key “client_id” and remove the key.
Clever son of a that Chrome is, it will notice the change and try to recreate the entry, plus it will generate a file called Local State.tmp which will contain a backup of the configuration, including your “client_id” with the unique Application ID.

Nice try, Google. Thought noone would notice, eh ? So make sure you delete the “client_id” in both files, and then, very important, make sure you change their attributes to read only via Windows Explorer to prevent Chrome messing around with those files again and restoring the “client_id” key. That´s it for the unique Application ID, that´s gone for good and we can deal with the next step of stopping Chrome from sending to much data to Google.

The Local State and Local State.tmp contain another “feature” you might want to turn off. Chrome reports back to Google about crashes of the Browser and general usage, and especially that general usage is a thing i don´t want Google to know. Pretty sure you don´t want that either, so let´s go disable it.

In both files look for this bit of code:

"user_experience_metrics": {
"reporting_enabled": true,


Yay, found the reporting function, so disable it by simply setting it to false instead of true



When you type anything in Chrome´s URL address bar it will try sort of an auto-completion by making suggestions of URLs that you might be looking for. Sadly the infromation you key in there is also send to Google, otherwise it wouldn´t work the way Google intends it to work.

I am sure a lot of people give jack about that feature, not wanting Google to know what they are typing in their address bar. Rightly so, i don´t want that either, what i type in my address bar is between me and her, noone else ^^

So where to disable that feature ?
Quite simple, there is a file called Preferences in the Chrome/User Data/Default folder. Just open it with Notepad or any other text editor you have at hand and you will see this:

{
"alternate_error_pages": {
"enabled": false
},
"bookmark_bar": {
"show_on_all_tabs": true
},
"browser": {
"block_popups": false,
"show_home_button": true
},
"default_search_provider": {
"id": "2",
"name": "Google",
"search_url": "{google:baseURL}search?{google:RLZ}{google:acceptedSuggestion}{google riginalQueryForSuggestion}sourceid=chrome&ie={inputEncoding}&q={searchTerms}",
"suggest_url": "{google:baseSuggestURL}search?client=chrome&output=chrome&hl={language}&q={searchTerms}"
},
"download": {
"default_directory": "H:\\Downloads",
"directory_upgrade": true,
"extensions_to_open": ""
},
"geoid_at_install": 94,
"profile": {
"exited_cleanly": false,
"id": "not-signed-in",
"name": "",
"nickname": ""
},
"search": {
"suggest_enabled": false
},
"session": {
"urls_to_restore_on_startup": [ ]
}
}


The piece of code we are looking for is this one:

"search": {
"suggest_enabled": true


Right, there we are then.´To disable this feature, just replace “true” with “false” and the auto-completion / suggestion is down the drain, just like the Application ID. There is alson another option that you might want to deactivate in this file. I am talking about the alternate_error_pages.

This function will send details to Google when you try to open websites that either don´t exist or have been mistyped or whatever. To stop Chrome from doing that change this bit of code in the Preferences file:

{
"alternate_error_pages": {
"enabled": true
},
Just change it from true to false and we are done with the Preferences file.





Finally, Chrome upon installation also installs the annoying GoogleUpdate.exe which does what you might have suspected by the name of it. It checks for Updates on any installed Google Software on your system. You can either leave it or kill it, your decision. To remove it open regedit and remove the Google Update key from (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software \Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run)



Ok, that´s it. You might go the extra mile and alter every occurence of google.com in the chrome.dll, but from what i saw when logging data with Wireshark there isn´t much left that Google can transfer when all the above changes have been made.

And for everyone that isn´t that technical and scared of doing those changes manually, there are also a few tools out there that will do all that for you:

http://winfuture.de/downloadvorschalt,2208.html
http://blog.gjl-network.net/blog/uploads/programs/chrome_anonymizer_1.0.0.4.zip


hope that helps

 

I knew they will get data when I downloaded the thing. Not news for me but thanks any ways. It is not worse than Facebook .

 

yeah but this will stop the reporting... figured for those that wanted to do it.. i did

 

Best solution:

Start -> Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Google Chrome -> Uninstall



For FF3 users, did you know by default you're sending data to google too?

In Options -> Security, these 2 boxes are checked by default, uncheck them if you don't want it to connect to google.

 

+1
thats what I did

 

^^ make sure to remove the updater a lot of people said even after a uninstall it left that running in the services.. might want to check

 

+rep. I use SRWare Iron myself, but have had Chrome installed before and notices when I went to the directories mentioned there was still stuff left behind.

 

now you can basically make chrome = iron with taking out all the reporting stuff also though even though i am also using iron right now. id like to say iron will update fast though and yes so far they have kept up on it but a few months down the line who knows

 

Interesting. I always thought that was the anti-phishing.

 

It is anti-phishing, but they're checking it with google's servers. The other day I was looking at my firewall's log, I noticed FF3 will connect to a bunch of addresses that look like "sb.google.com/safebrowsing/lookup?..." or "sb.google.com/safebrowsing/update?..." even when my FF window is on a blank page, and it will connect to them every time before you connect to a website.

 

I have to say it. Good post from you Stewie as normal.

Still can't rep you. Dammit.

Cheers,
Theo