Reading Google Chrome's Fine Print

Much ink and many electrons are being spilled over Google's Chrome browser (discussed here twice in recent days): from deep backgrounders to performance benchmarks to its vulnerability to a carpet-bombing flaw. The latest angle to be explored is Chrome's end-user license agreement. It does not look consumer-friendly. "By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services."

Comments

404

[m0ve]

funny thing : i can read this with FF but get 404 using chrome

Re:404

[MyLongNickName]

It blocks Slashdot? It is a bigger success than I thought!

Re:404

[iocat]

FWIW, My company just banned using Chrome based on the EULA.

This is not Chrome-specific.

[DrEldarion]

I doubt this has anything to do with Chrome. It's taken straight out of their Google Accounts terms: https://www.google.com/accounts/TOS?hl=en

See point 11.1.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Swizec]

There's a difference between having an EULA for google services and an EULA for google browser and they should be different. I can understand anything I upload to google being google's property henceforth, but anything I upload using their browser? Basically ... if I use their browser anything I do online becomes their property ... how is that good for me or anyone?

This is yet another sign of google's impending world domination. Won't be long before they own everything people use from software, to clothes, to spouses and children.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[tirerim]

Even if it's part of their generic license, how it applies to Chrome is still important. What does "submitting, posting, or displaying" even mean in the context of a browser? It seems at least slightly plausible that could be interpreted to include personally generated content that the user views with the browser. I hope that it doesn't really work that way, but I am not a lawyer.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[FilterMapReduce]

Google has announced that Chrome is to be open source. If this has the conventional meaning of being licensed under an OSI-approved license, or anything remotely resembling one, then a EULA would be redundant and unenforceable. (Even if Google tried to exercise some implicit contractual terms around the use of Chrome, someone could simply exercise the permissions given under the open source license to repackage the code under a different name with no EULA.)

I'm not going to RTFA at this hour, but the only reasonable interpretation is that the terms in question apply only to Google's services and not the browser software itself. Anything else would be audacious even for a company without Google's mostly good reputation.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[minginqunt]

The frequency of badsummary on this site makes me sad.

I bet the editors of this site never intended the tag system to be used primarily as a mechanism for drawing attention to their own incompetence.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[hdparm]

It's really strange stuff. Someone might think that even transfers/deposits one makes while accessing own bank account also belong to Google. Or stuff someone buys on Ebay. Once on-line voting and Chrome become prevalent, Google will also become The President.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine an even more far fetched scenario - your company uses some kind of web mail. One could abstract that Google have some claim over any emails and attachments you send/receive through Chrome.

Clearly this is not what Google intend and they have pasted their generic EULA into place until such times as they can afford to pay for a legal representative to write a shiny new one.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[rugatero]

Basically ... if I use their browser anything I do online becomes their property ... how is that good for me or anyone?

Actually the terms say that you grant a royalty-free licence, not ownership. It's still an unacceptable condition, but I feel the distinction is important.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Rogerborg]

I'm all for syntactic sugar, but isn't badsummary completely redundant when it follows the 'kdawson' tag?

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Idaho]

There's a difference between having an EULA for google services and an EULA for google browser and they should be different.

Here is the privacy policy for Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/privacy.html

It does not mention the terms in this article, which clearly seem related to google services and not the browser.

Mind you, the privacy policy does mention unique ID's for each browser, and sending them to google every time you start the browser. Also, Chrome automatically installs a GoogleUpdate executable and adds it to your autoruns; I really hate it when applications do that. So it's still pretty bad, but not in exactly the way this "article" makes it out to be.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[savuporo]

Chrome is _going_ to be open source ? Whatever happened to "release early, release often" ideology ? I mean, if they decided that its going to be open source from the outset, why wouldnt they be doing the development in the open as well ?

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[centuren]

I routinely admonish coworkers (above and below me) for sending email through a 3rd party webmail provider (usually them sending something to my gmail address rather than work address, for some unknown reason). When I'm working remotely and the normal server goes down, I'll use Google's SMTP server if it's the best working option, but it goes through encrypted.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[wildstoo]

The source is available now, and from what I understand they're using the BSD License.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Chuck Chunder]

http://code.google.com/chromium/

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Kagura]

Google Earth and potentially other programs install the Google Updater, too. I've come to expect this from other applications, but it takes me totally by surprise from Google, and I'm not just being petty. That said, I don't interfere with the Google Updater, because overall I want all my Google applications kept easily up to date. There are enough of them (Google Earth/Desktop/Chrome) that it is nicer to have an autoupdater keeping track.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[MacroRex]

The privacy policy is not relevant, the EULA is.

I work for a small codeshop that does (among other things) document management applications. Our apps have a browser-based UI, and if I'm reading the EULA right, any information (including documents etc.) used with our apps are automatically licensed to Google if the user uses Chrome.

IANAL and I hope I'm wrong, because otherwise I can't see how Chrome could be used with business applications at all.

There's a difference Chrome automatically installs a GoogleUpdate executable and adds it to your autoruns; I really hate it when applications do that.

StartupMonitor is your friend.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[gi.net]

The parent is right. Here is the complete sentence (notice that the first phrase has been omitted by the poster):

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

What I understand is that you must allow google to let them publish and modify the documents you put on their servers. For me it's to be able to backup the data, change the files formats, etc...

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Simon Brooke]

In the modern day that is, sadly, merely a semantic difference. If someone has a royalty-free licence to do anything with something they might as well own it and it woudln't make any difference to them or the author.

You might want to look up 'semantic' in a dictionary. It means the opposite of what you think it means.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Anonymous Coward]

Many open source licenses only deal with the source code, they are silent on binaries.

Google Chrome is licensed under the BSD License (as someone else pointed out) which says:

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met...

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[cdrudge]

They didn't steal anything. You give them permission when you accept the license agreement and you upload something. If you don't want them to "steal" whatever, don't use their software and/or don't upload anything.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[zby]

Here is the link for you: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html And the referenced text is there.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Vectronic]

Agreed, so far I dont see anything that either Opera or Firefox can't do... not to mention that Chrome is twice the size of Opera, and almost 3 times as large as Firefox with less functionality.

Also that it installs into ..\Documents and Settings\%UserName%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\* annoying.

From which I tried finding the EULA as was too lazy to read it during setup, and it doesnt seem to be there, nor within the application itself, seems to only be at http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html

Although I do find it too cute/clean/simple, currently it seems more directed at mobiles than desktops, or maybe im just more fond of options than some, although I was/am fairly impressed with its speed, currently there are too few options, and annoyances (basically meaning im not used to them) it does have some good though, like the "Element Inspector" is quick and easy, but the seperate process rather than seperate threads, is IMHO crap frankly... 15-20MB's extra memory and 2 threads for each.

120MB's and some 40 threads, and 7 processes to open 7 Google.com's...

45MB's and 35 threads, one process to do the same in Opera (Although Slashdot is open aswell, and its been open for about 2 weeks, might change on a clean run)

35MB's and 15 threads, one process in Firefox...

But this is a Beta, and a rather early one at that, it does have potential for some people.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[ari_j]

For your statistical pleasure: http://slashdot.org/tags/kdawsonsucks

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[MightyYar]

It probably doesn't count as "stealing" (especially since you can't "steal" IP, remember?), but it is certainly unconscionable and I'm confident would be ruled so by courts. It's just like those credit card agreements that say you lose all rights by agreeing to use this card. Oh, and this agreement can be changed at any time, customer to be notified by an ad in the Sacramento Penny Saver.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[RiotingPacifist]

but as you can compile from source using the licesne for gain is moot, meaning that the license is just there to cover their asses as the browser may not render pages perfectly and this may get them sued in sue happy America.

P.s this and all slashdot posts are held under a vitually identical EULA.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[iansocool]

look up 'semantic' in a dictionary

se*man*tic
-adjective
of or pertaining to semantics.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Swizec]

Yes, I understand they are/might be, but I don't care because I post here knowing full well I'm adding content to slashdot and don't even really care who owns the post. But if my browser had an EULA saying everything I do using it becomes somebody's property (or whatever) I'd have a real problem using it to post to my blog, access my bank etc. etc.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[RiotingPacifist]

are we talking about slashdot

With respect to text or data entered into and stored by publicly-accessible site features such as forums, comments and bug trackers ("SourceForge Public Content"), the submitting user retains ownership of such SourceForge Public Content; with respect to publicly-available statistical content which is generated by the site to monitor and display content activity, such content is owned by SourceForge. In each such case, the submitting user grants SourceForge the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any applicable license.

or google:

By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[savuporo]

Valid point. More importantly,

http://dev.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/getting-started

And for the impatient, here is the meat of it

gclient config http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/chrome
gclient sync

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[sm62704]

You might want to look up 'semantic' in a dictionary.

You might want to link a dictionary when you accuse someone of ignorance, and quote it as well.

semantic Audio Help /smæntk/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[si-man-tik] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
-adjective 1. of, pertaining to, or arising from the different meanings of words or other symbols: semantic change; semantic confusion.
2. of or pertaining to semantics.

Also, semantical.

[Origin: 1655-65; Gk sémantikós having meaning, equiv. to sémant(ós) marked (séman-, base of sémaínein to show, mark + -tos verbal adj. suffix; akin to sêma sign) + -ikos -ic]

--Related forms
semantically, adverb

semantic Audio Help (s-mn'tk) Pronunciation Key
adj.
Of or relating to meaning, especially meaning in language.
Of, relating to, or according to the science of semantics.

[French sémantique, from Greek smantikos, significant, from smantos, marked, from smainein, sman-, to signify, from sma, sign.]

seman'tically adv.

semantic

1894, from Fr. sémantique, applied by Michel Bréal (1883) to the psychology of language, from Gk. semantikos "significant," from semainein "to show, signify, indicate by a sign," from sema "sign" (Doric sama). Semantics "the study of the relationship between linguistic symbols and their meanings" is recorded from 1893. Earlier this was called semasiology (1847, from Ger. Semasiologie, 1829).

I believe he used the term correctly, and said exactly what he meant. There is no real difference; only wordplay.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Minwee]

You might want to look up 'semantic' in a dictionary. It means the opposite of what you think it means.

Are you trying to say that it doesn't mean "bloated, ineffectual, resource hogging security software"? Maybe I have just been spelling it wrong.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Jason1729]

Actually, from the very bottom of every slashdot page "All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2008 SourceForge, Inc"

You absolutely do not own posts to your blog (at least under US and Canadian copyright laws).

By what you said, when you upload to a paid host, you are adding content to THEIR webserver, the fact that you pay them has no impact on this. Google is ad-supported, so when you upload content to their website, you are paying them by viewing ads and proving content so that others will view ads. Of course payment simply doesn't matter.

If I take your arguement, the local radio talk show beams content that they own into my home without my consent. Can I simply claim that since they put their content in my house, I now own it?

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[juhaz]

It's perfectly acceptable for a web service - they all have similar clauses - and granting them some rights is even necessary, my post is intended to be public, and they do need to permission to show it to others.

It's certainly not acceptable for a browser to do with private data.

Do you really fail to see the difference, or are you just building strawmen for fun?

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[MacroRex]

I don't think Chrome sends the stuff anywhere (see here), but anyway, this is a theoretical legal problem translating into practice so that no company lawyer will permit any handling of company data with Chrome. This would mean that Chrome will be outright banned.

The implications of the EULA sound nonsensical, and I sincerely hope that someone will soon demonstrate how I'm wrong about this.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Awptimus Prime]

but it takes me totally by surprise from Google

Why? I've been predicting for years the Google love will eventually start turning into hatred. We are talking about a publicly traded corporate entity with much of it's base in capitalist Amerikka here.

If Microsoft, or anyone else, released an application with a updater process that remained after uninstalling, there would be so much howling on here the thread would simply implode.

But it's Google, so people are trying to defend it by saying it's beta, but leaving out a single line in the uninstall script would have removed the updater executable, so it seems suspect to me. More like someone, somewhere said, "No, we don't want that file removed, take that line out" after Dev initially used common sense and would be unlikely to forget something like this.

More howling, imo, needs to happen in regards to them releasing this with a lot of Windows specific code. The way I understand things, you try to keep your source as posix as possible from the start and not write a Windows application for beta, then slowly rework your code to something more Linux friendly. I could be wrong.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[clone53421]

That's slightly different. Slashdot is a public forum, and it's reasonable to expect that comments could be used by /. to promote the site. Since it says the comments are owned by the posters, they should also have to properly attribute any comments they use (I'd expect; but then, IANAL).

Chrome, OTOH, might be used to post a private post to a blog — which nobody can read unless they're on a list of "allowed" people — and Google's terms of use say they claim rights to use that.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Nephroth]

Only to content you post to Google services, which means that they don't own any rights to this post, for instance, but they retain rights to reproduce, display, and reuse any content that I upload to YouTube, or any other Google site. Hate to say it, but this is a condition of basically any Web2.0 service, and a source of my dislike for the cloud.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[mr_mischief]

What part of the definition of "web browser" makes you think it's defined to be a "service"? Do you think the terms might be there to cover the cases when Chrome is used to post to Google's actual services, using the integration into Google Search, their anti-phishing list, the geolocation services, GMail, and other services that are integrated with Chrome through the inclusion of Gears?

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[Sancho]

I think that what really happened is that Google screwed up, copied their Google Apps license verbatim, and didn't think about the repercussions. A license like that doesn't even make sense in the context of a browser--it makes sense in the context of a service. It's a boilerplate bit of text which prevents me from successfully suing a company, say Slashdot, for publishing content I posted.

In other words, Slashdot's lawyers would laugh at me for even trying to sue Slashdot for publishing this particular post, which is copyrighted by me.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[TuringTest]

"release early, release often" is not an idea-logy, it's a method-logy.

Re:This is not Chrome-specific.

[fatphil]

The slashdot one covers things that you upload to slashdot specifically in order for them to propagate it to all and sundry.

The google one covers everything on every site you use for any purpose. Including your online bank.

The two are utterly unrelated. When you sign up at a gym for a martial arts course, you indemnify them against you getting punched in the nose. That's because getting punched in the nose is an expected component of martial arts courses. "We reserve the right to punch you in the nose", however, is not a desirable clause when signing up at your local library for a library card, say.

Misread much?

[onlysolution]

It looks to me like the out-of-context excerpts here all pertain to your use of Google's services with Chrome. All of these services state that you agree to let Google use the data you generate so I perhaps these clauses are present in Chrome's EULA to cover your use of their apps in Gears?

Re:Misread much?

[zby]

Right at the beginning of the EULA you have definition of the word Service - as it is used in that document:

Google Chrome Terms of Service

These Terms of Service apply to the executable code version of Google Chrome. Source code for Google Chrome is available free of charge under open source software license agreements at http://code.google.com/chromium/terms.html.

1. Your relationship with Google

1.1 Your use of Googleâ(TM)s products, software, services and web sites (referred to collectively as the âoeServicesâ in this document and excluding any services provided to you by Google under a separate written agreement) is subject to the terms of a legal agreement between you and Google.

So when in the point 9.1. they use the word 'Service' it clearly means: "products, software, services and web sites" and that includes Chrome.

Use Chromium

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest you use the OpenSource version of Chrome , which is BSD licensed and has no EULA you need to agree to.

I think they made this separation of Chrome and Chromium to keep the "Chrome" brand under their control while still making the browser open source.

Builds:
http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/

Info:
http://www.chromium.org

Re:Use Chromium

[centuren]

Quite right.

Any specific critiques of interface of licensing seem to be moot in the long run, since the stated goal of this browser is to release better tools for ALL the browsers, including ones that are fully open source.

There's not much point in arguing how much Google might monitor or claim usage-rights over, as the obvious goal is a backbone for all browsers that makes their applications run better and gives them more potential to develop new ones. Competing with IE and FF doesn't exactly fit well in their business plan.

The real questions are, if V8 actually does blow all current JS engines away, how soon are we going to see it in a Firefox release? If the independent handling of tabs prove to be the sensible way to handle it, will it make it into FF4?

If the things Google is introducing are better, V8 should get in there quickly, but multiprocess handling of tabs and plugins, etc, will require quite a bit of work to get into existing browsers.

Re:Use Chromium

[sd.fhasldff]

Considering the MASSIVE javascript speed improvements Mozilla have achieved using "hotpath" techniques, I think it's unlikely (these improvements are not yet in stable release). On the other hand, the description of V8 from the Google Comic seem to indicate that they do something along the same lines, by dynamically compiling parts of the script to "machine code" (as they say). Without specifics, it's difficult to compare the approaches, though...

And, by the way, this optimizing is also why there is "IE32" and "ARM" specific code in Chrome. There has to be. That's integral to how hotpath-type techniques work.

A turn off?

[hachiman]

Whilst the auto update feature sort of makes sense (if you discount a malicious user working out how to auto-update an installed copy with their own code), I detest ads, possibly in common with the rest of the world. Ok, it is their revenue, but it's bad enough seeing them on pages, but having them eve more targetted???

Oh yes, and the autoupdate program (googleupdate.exe) still executes at startup even after Chrome is uninstalled. I know it's a beta, but that's just sloppy.

Or is it???

Re:A turn off?

[bignetbuy]

It is sloppy. GoogleUpdate is called as a scheduled task on MS platforms. It claims that if Chrome is uninstalled, the scheduledtask will remove itself in "a few hours".

Still, not using Add/Remove programs like other well-behaved apps is just shady.

Re:A turn off?

[antirelic]

I do not so much mind "targeted adds" as much as I mind "add spam". I would love to know about new electronics, new games, new guns, and who the hottest new chick is, but what I dont care about is: making $10000 a month with a home based business, mortgage rates dropping, dancing women on roof tops, or premium life insurance for the elderly. Yes, adds are intrusive, but they provide incentive for people to put up interesting web sites that I like to frequent, without having to charge me a subscription fee (not sure of any other money making model that has succeeded for web sites).

I'm more concerned about this part...

[Anonymous Coward]

12. Software updates 12.1 The Software that you use may automatically download and install updates from time to time from Google. These updates are designed to improve, enhance and further develop the Services and may take the form of bug fixes, enhanced functions, new software modules and completely new versions. You agree to receive such updates (and permit Google to deliver these to you) as part of your use of the Services.

Burying an agreement to have spyware installed on your machine deep within obscure legalese is not something I'd have expected of Google, and there seems to be no way to disable the associated googleupdate.exe process without registry hacking.

adj: Unconscionable

[jackb_guppy]

Google lawyers may need to learn a new word that ATT was just taught... Unconscionable

Re:It wont even install for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Prepare to be even less impressed and look at the V8 src, they only have codegen for ia32 and arm. Plenty of hardcoded platform specific (windows) guff in the browser codebase too.

This stuff might have been acceptable in 2003 but it's -DEPIC_FAIL for 2008.

So far so good.

[Blimey85]

I'm using it right now just to try it out. I'm a huge Firefox fan and have been for several years now. I started using Firefox back when it was just a beta, long before version 1 finally hit. As a web programmer I think I use Firefox more than any other program and I've really come to like it. It does have a few issues that I'd like to see resolved however, and I think Chrome might be going in the right direction. Memory usage in Firefox is nuts and always has been. After browsing for a couple of hours I can close all tabs and still use nearly 400 megs of memory. That's a serious problem. Sure I can restart Firefox at that point and get the memory back, but I shouldn't need to. Also, when Firefox is using more than 300 megs on my machine, it starts to slow down. I had a gig and a half in my computer so I thought maybe I needed more. I bought another gig and brought my total to 2.5 gigs, yet Firefox still begins to crap out around the 300 meg threshold.

From the comic it seems like Google really wants to take a new approach to how browsers deal with memory and I think Firefox could learn from that. Is that enough to make me switch? No, not at all. I rely on a number of Firefox extensions and unless Google makes Chrome compatible with Firefox extensions, or comes up with their own system and then develops a tool to auto-port Firefox extensions, I don't think a lot of people are going to switch. Back when I was running 1.5.3 (I think it was .3) and had a number of stability issues I might have given Chrome serious consideration but I only installed it tonight to see what it's all about. When I'm done playing it's back to Firefox I go.

Re:So far so good.

[BBFire]

Yes! All looking good / working fine here too. Simple no future for me though without AdBlock (or some equivalent).. thought I'd seen the last of those damn smileys forever. "Do no evil".. cmon, it's tantamount to torture nowadays to leave a user unsure if the next tab is going to greet them with a nauseating flash anim or that buzzing noise..

Re:So far so good.

[Smivs]

I used Firefox for years and still do to an extent, but a couple of years ago I 'saw the light' and moved to Opera as my default browser. It does everything I need it to, quickly and securely, it takes up much less screen real-estate, and is very customisable. It's occassionaly caught out by sites 'optimised' for I.E. (but what isn't?) but otherwise is brilliant.

Re:So far so good.

[gbjbaanb]

though to be fair, Adblock is best used if the ads are downloaded but not displayed - that way the site gets the revenue, and you automatically get to ignore the ads.

Re:So far so good.

[Kalriath]

No site that actually cares about your one page view because they need it, will ever get paid until you click the ad. You're not helping them.

LGPL?

[bcmm]

Chrome uses WebKit, which is based on the LGPL'ed software KHTML. Shouldn't this make it harder to put weird restrictions on usage?

jumping to conclusions

[speedtux]

I think you're jumping to conclusions; that is Google's usual "content license", and something they need in order to offer services to you. I don't know how you think it applies to the browser. If you're trying to imply that Google is attempting to claim that everything you do with Chrome belongs to them, you're wrong.

guff?

[stupidflanders]

I think... I think he's trying to communicate with us, but I can't quite make out what he's saying.

Re:guff?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think... I think he's trying to communicate with us, but I can't quite make out what he's saying.

Please do feel free to look up any short, monosyllabic, four letter words that are above your level of reading comprehension.

"Growser" is currently Windows only. It's got hard coded registry access and other such retardation throughout the code. Where you might think lib/ the chromium developers think chrome_dll/ and so on.

Re:guff?

[lanswitch]

It's language, Jim, but not as we know it.

Re:guff?

[Anonymous Coward]

So... you're making fun of him based on your own ignorance?

Re:guff?

[canUbeleiveIT]

It was a light-hearted joke...relax.

Re:guff?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop these dictionary attacks on us feeble minded!

forget the fine print - it's phones home like mad

[Anonymous Coward]

This thing is lighting up my firewall constantly, during install, operation and uninstall.

Even after uninstall it leaves GoogleUpdate.exe installed and running and pinging google every hour.

I'm sticking with Firefox 3.1's javascript compiler instead:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/

Re:Great License Agreement

[thetoadwarrior]

Replace the g with a $ and show them how you really feel!

Boilerplate TOS

[speakerbomb]

How is Google going to "reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute the content you submit, post or display on Chrome"? It sounds boilerplate to me (which is kind of surprising, since you'd think Google would have a crack legal team banging one out before Chrome's release).

dominiation

[hbshbs]

saying that every information we upload using this software may be used by google means they have to log this data somewhere. and they do ask if you want to send information about the use of the browser but you can refuse. i do believe that they wouldn't collect information using the browser itself since it's a complicated task that will consume alot of web traffic and space. as already said they have much better ways doing so with their other web applications, all the chrome idea is to make ppl trust the web applications better, and make it easier to use hence more ppl use the google web apps ---> more info on google servers ---> more info google can use to do what the hell they want with... p/s/ it is a demonic eula... worst than a mortgage one.

Googolomania

[sciop101]

Google: "We can coexist, but only on my terms. The choice is yours: Obey me and live, or disobey and die."

Skynet has been launched...

[datalife]

All your (data)base are belong to us.

Re:Scary

[Candid88]

And if you think google are just using the information "to allow you to customise things and target ads towards you" then you're having a laugh.

At least government is bound by freedom-of-information acts, elections etc. so we can actually find out about things like RFID tags. There's absolutely no way to tell what Google are up to with the data.

I AM SO HAPPY!

[hyperz69]

This is totally awesome and fair! This is the best thing to happen on the internet! GOOGLE IS THE BEST COMPANY EVER!

"Posted with Chrome, edited for content by Google"

Re:Scary

[swordgeek]

Hmm. Which government is this, bound to follow their own laws? The police state is spreading through the western world, and I'm not seeing many governments willing to be constrained anymore.

Re:Great License Agreement

[pipatron]

Or just press "cancel" at the EULA and get the download anyway, like I did.

Sheesh.....complain guys.....they DO listen

[Danathar]

1. BETA..Beta..BETA (although their use of "Beta" is a bit stretched I know).

2. Complain, email, Complain!! - Google DOES listen generally (they may not write back, but people do pay attention)

Re:Sheesh.....complain guys.....they DO listen

[greenfield]

1. BETA..Beta..BETA (although their use of "Beta" is a bit stretched I know).

If you discuss license agreements with a lawyer, I don't think saying, "This is a beta license agreement" will carry much weight. If you agree to a contract, you are agreeing to the contract, warts and all. It's also worth noting that services like Gmail are still in "beta."

2. Complain, email, Complain!! - Google DOES listen generally (they may not write back, but people do pay attention)

I posted a question on Google groups a week or so ago and have now sent two email messages about the TOS. No response on the Google group; no response to the email messages. As you point out, they may be paying attention, but it's a bit hard to tell, no?

No kids allowed either!

[Anonymous Coward]

2.3 You may not use the Services and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google, ...

Apparently kids are not allowed to use chrome.

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

The US is a strange place. People here want freedom from the goverment and have this idea in the back of their heads of some sort of Matrix style world springing up anyday.

I remember when I moved here from Russia 5 years ago and mortage, loan, cell-phone, health insurance etc. In many ways I felt far less "free" than when living under communism (if I didn't pay $x every month I would be locked up and left to rot!).

We pride ourselves on "freedom" form the goverment but our Corporation's on the other hand impose some of the most oppressive rules on customers than anywhere in the world.

Very few places in the world can a company sue you just for quiting your job. Very few places in the world can companies dictate exactly how you can live your life or else you don't receive basic healthcare. It's a strange, strange place.

It's not even for *all* Windows...

[Peet42]

I fired up my Linux box and went to the Chrome homepage. It said "Windows only".

So, I wired up my Windows 2000 box and went to the homepage. It now said "XP/Vista only".

Why couldn't they have said that on the Linux version? It would have saved me a frustrating fifteen minutes of crawling around plugging inn video cables.

Re:forget the fine print - it's phones home like m

[slashflood]

Preventing Paranoia: When does Google Chrome talk to Google.com?. Please read it carefully.

stop spying on me

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet America, Google Chrome surfs you!

Re:It wont even install for me

[Goaway]

Damn them for not making their codebase absolutely perfect from day one! Software should spring into life fully formed, like Athena from Zeus' forehead!

Re:It wont even install for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Worked fine for me on XP x64. Probably something wrong with your system.

That said, I uninstalled it immediately due to some big annoyances:

1) I could not find a download for a local installer, instead it forces you to download an installer stub that downloads and installs the browser.

2) It did not let me choose where to install it. Instead it automatically installed into documents and settings\user\local settings\application data\google without so much as a prompt.

3) It added a "Google updater" to my startup programs without asking me if that was ok or even telling me about it.

4) When I uninstalled it, it didn't remove all of its files and didn't even clean out the startup entry for the aforementioned updater. I had to remove those things manually.

Sorry Google, I don't like it when software tries to take control away from me and doesn't notify me of system changes. These are the kinds of things that will keep me far away from Chrome.

Re:It wont even install for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations - you just set the Slashdot record for the least comprehensible post ever.

Re:It wont even install for me

[PopeRatzo]

Prepare to be even less impressed and look at the V8 src

Gosh, you would think this was beta software or something.

I want my money back.

My box of cornflakes has the same EULA

[YojimboJango]

Really? This is in every EULA. Who cares.

Re:Business is business

[foobsr]

google was supposed to the company that was "different"

Google was marketed as the company that was "different". Fixed that for you.

It is impossible for a 'good' company to exist/survive in a market that is ruled by (capitalist) laws of competition and profit.

CC.

Re:It wont even install for me

[beav007]

Don't take it personally, but I can't have any respect for people (or their opinion) who use the phrase "epic fail"...makes one sound like those immature "cool" kids on the web.

Epic fail.

Re:Guck Foogle

[ILuvSP]

Google is a commercial enterprise... 'nuff sed.

To elaborate...Google is an advertising and marketing company!! Everything they do, is directed towards knowing the consumer. This EULA is genius...and so is this product (the browser). What better way is there of harvesting consumer information? Create a browser, say you have royalty-free license to everything that goes through said browser. This is a like striking gold for an advertising company. It is essentially spyware, only made by Google so it's good...right?

Re:It wont even install for me

[MyLongNickName]

Yup. Call it "beta", and you can get away with anything. Especially after their cool comic book bragged about their advanced testing techniques that put everyone else to shame.

Re:It wont even install for me

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean that's *not* what happens when I run "svn checkout" ? Lies! Damn lies!

Re:forget the fine print - it's phones home like m

[TheJasper]

Very nice article but it doesn't do anything to fix the problem of what they might do in the future. Since the EULA reserves the right to install basically any functionality they want there is nothing preventing future abuse. Certainly it is a matter of trust. A blog like that increases my paranoia because it reads like a paid advertisement.

btw I am not anti-google. I use google to search for everyything, my primary email is gmail.
I also dont think Google or any company can actually do all the crazy things people can imagine when taking a EULA to extremes. EULAS aren't even worth the paper they're written on.

It's still in early beta...

[brianez21]

Prepare to be even less impressed and look at the V8 src, they only have codegen for ia32 and arm. Plenty of hardcoded platform specific (windows) guff in the browser codebase too.

This stuff might have been acceptable in 2003 but it's -DEPIC_FAIL for 2008.

There's build instructions for Mac OS X and Linux. Of course, the browser doesn't actually run on *nix yet, but you can't say they're not trying.

Re:It's still in early beta...

[teh kurisu]

Google describe Chrome as 'multi-platform'. They also say that they're tailoring each version to the platform it runs on, so that it doesn't have the 'rough edges' that (for example) Firefox and Safari have.

Chromium's overall design has been multi-platform from the start, but we are also committed to getting the details right for users on each platform.

Going slightly off topic to discuss the browser..

[mike_diack]

I was underwhelmed myself...

They've done a BAD job of the installer:

1) It doesn't let you choose where to install the app.
2) It doesn't install it under \Program Files - believe it or not it installs the binaries in the profile directory of the user who did the installation!

Item 2) of course means that for Windows users (like me) who have multiple Windows accounts are absolutely stuck - they can't run the browser except when logged on as that same user who did the installation. For me, because I run as a limited user but login as admin to install software, that means that the limited user account can't access the chrome files, which are stored in the admin profile directory!

Really stupid design mistakes - I've already reported them to Google - I hope they fix it pronto. With that kind of a bug it shouldn't have even made it to beta.
Not only that but when you uninstall it - it _doesn't_ uninstall the google updater that it added during the installation process.

Not impressed.

Mike

Re:It wont even install for me

[InfiniteLoopCounter]

Congratulations - you just set the Slashdot record for the least comprehensible post ever.

Here, I'll translate that for you:

(1.000 times 10^100, swap position of o/l, o -> e) has machine language instructions encoded by a compiler which first ran through a preprocessor from some characters saved in a file in physical memory that a lot for the (opposite of hard) + ware on faster than walking on an operating system that has a penguin as a mascot (not technically because Linux is just the kernel, but I will let that slide). It seems [to the GP poster] like half their (not the penguins) stuff they (result of incontinence) through alcoholic beverage.

Re:It wont even install for me

[MightyYar]

After playing with it a bit, I'd say it is far more stable than either Safari Beta or Mozilla Beta was. I think it even beats out IE 7 Beta (I didn't play with 8). It has fewer features, though.

Still, pretty impressive for a first release.

How to disable GoogleUpdate.exe

[untree]

Removing might be harder (but unnecessary) than this, but the following will prevent the service from loading:

Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services

Find the Google Update Service, select Properties from the right-click menu, and Disable.

Down with "add spam"!

[amake]

I want "subtract spam"!

Re:Down with "add spam"!

[Spatial]

Impossible. Obviously, spam is unsigned.

That part of the EULAD does not apply to Chrome.

[Galileo_M2]

Read point 1.2 of the EULA and you will see that 95% of the EULA does NOT apply to Chrome. 1.2 Unless otherwise agreed in writing with Google, your agreement with Google will always include, at a minimum, the terms and conditions set out in this document. These are referred to below as the âoeUniversal Termsâ. Open source software licenses for Google Chrome source code constitute separate written agreements. To the limited extent that the open source software licenses expressly supersede these Universal Terms, the open source licenses govern your agreement with Google for the use of Google Chrome or specific included components of Google Chrome.

Re:It wont even install for me

[g0dsp33d]

You'll change your mind when Duke Nukem Forever comes out.

You've mixed up Chrome and Chromium

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome is Google's private, closed-source browser. Chromium is the open-source (BSD-licensed) project from which Chrome takes some of its code. Chromium is completely non-operational at this point in time (ie. it doesn't run), as it's very early days on the open-source project. Chrome in contrast is very nicely operational already, since its code is not the same as that being put together by the Chromium folks.

And the key point here is that Chrome and Chromium have completely different licenses, therefore your comment is entirely worthless.

Re:It wont even install for me

[bistromath007]

Yes, and they will continually improve it. How terrible.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention...

[dkegel]

Google's looking into this issue now, thanks to everybody who reported it.

Re:It wont even install for me

[mrtvfuencxozd]

hey this is how my boss thinks things work...

Re:It wont even install for me

[Graywolf]

Exactly. The GoogleUpdater was still running after I uninstalled. Don't be evil, my ass...

Re:It wont even install for me

[syousef]

Damn them for not making their codebase absolutely perfect from day one! Software should spring into life fully formed, like Athena from Zeus' forehead!

Actually it should. It's not in vogue right at the moment but it's called testing BEFORE release. Do you really think for more critical stuff that the developers can afford to release untested crap and say "oh well it's beta"? Think of mission critical stuff - aircraft and spacecraft, power industry, telecommunications. Okay a web browser doesn't deserve quite the same level of scrutiny, but obvious bugs should be eliminated on day one. It USe to be common practice to at least try to do so, and failing to do so use to be an embarrassment. Now it's just business as usual. (By the way Google would have a lot more credibility using the term if their "beta" software didn't stay in beta for years)

Re:Scary

[shaka]

Which EULA would that be? The one linked in the article? Oh wait, the article doesn't actually link to any EULA.

Chrome's "EULA" may be found here. It consists principally of this sentence:

The Chromium software and sample code developed by Google is licensed under the BSD license.

No, that's the terms for Chromium. You seem to have it confused between Chrome, the product, and Chromium, the open-source browser project.

The EULA for Chrome, however, is available here.

Re:It wont even install for me

[brianwgray]

Whew, thank you for the translation. Now I understand.

The 404 Horses of the Apocalype

[DeadDecoy]

Yes, they found out slashdot was one of the worst malicious sites out there, as it periodically issued random DDOS attacks to other sites hosting content of scientific import. Once the shlashdot-reading chrome developers discover this, they'll take it off the blacklist (as they too need a daily helping of slashdot) but it'll be layered in warnings and throttled to all-hell. Unfortunately, this will cause paradox leading to the Apocalypse as google will slashdot slashdot just to make the internet work and Chrome function normally. The lucky few will be raptured to Apple, where they will spend the rest eternity amidst pretty, hermetically sealed plastic and user friendly software.

All I know...

[ericspinder]

I installed it last night at home, all I noticed was that it was fast. I didn't play with it for too long but page rendering was quick, and crisp. Based on your observations they might have a hard time creating a Linux port, but the windows version seems to work well (so far).

Terrible license agreement

[greenfield]

[Note: I am not a lawyer.]

As other posters have pointed out, the Chrome privacy policy seems to make section 11 moot as it implies that Google will not collect information other than what is required to actually run the browser. So while they assert a royalty-free perpetual license to some content, Google states that they are not capturing the content.

Several other web-based services have a similar license agreement. Generally, the reason why Google's standard Terms of Service requires a royalty-free license is so they can syndicate and publish content you decide to distribute using Google's services. This doesn't necessarily seem applicable to using a web browser. However, even if the content in Section 11 should be included, there are a couple of extra phrases that Google has that other companies do not include. And they make a real difference with other services like Picasa Web Albums.

One extra phrase that Google includes in their Terms of Service is "promote." Other companies, like Yahoo and Apple, do not have this clause. To me, this implies that Google can use your content in advertisements for free. Another clause gives Google the right to share your content with business partners for the provision of syndicated services. Again, this could be for promotional reasons; you might end us having your content used in advertisements for Google's business partners, especially as the reasons for sharing the content are not well defined in the Terms of Service.

I wrote a comparison of the Google Picasa Web Terms of Service against similar companies. No other company seems to grab the promotional rights to your material in the same manner that Google does.

Google can fix this problem for Chrome. Other services, like YouTube and Blogger, have much more specific terms of service that ameliorate the problems of Section 11 of the Google TOS. However, the better solution for Google is to fix their TOS in the first place to only grab the rights required to run their products.

Re:It wont even install for me

[Idiomatick]

They stay in beta until they have a 50%+ market share at which point they decide they are probably doing half decent and throw an official release party.

another reason not to use chrome

[the_B0fh]

about:plugins

ActiveX Plug-in
File name: activex-shim
ActiveX Plug-in provides a shim to support ActiveX controls

Re:Scary

[mcvos]

TVery few places in the world can a company sue you just for quiting your job.

It's still an improvement compared to the time when slaves who quit their job were hunted down with dogs.

(Yes, I'm aware this joke is going to cost me karma.)

Re:It wont even install for me

[haystor]

There are those of us who consider something like Chrome to have value before it is perfect. If it is possible to have a year early in a buggy state, I'd like to check it out and use it in my plans.

If you don't like it try this: don't use it.

Re:It wont even install for me

[lysergic.acid]

actually, i think Southwest uses shareware.

the aircraft takes off just fine. but instead of the landing gears deploying you just get a scrolling message asking you to register the software.

Re:It wont even install for me

[Anonymous Coward]

I am the AC who posted about the installation annoyances.

Since then, I have started using the Chromium snapshot from

http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/

This is much more to my liking. No installer, just a nice clean zip archive that you can uncompress anywhere. No Google updater running in the background.

The design is very clean, although I wish it would use my system colours and visual style (msstyles). Browsing is snappy and seems to render pages well. Passes Acid2 and scores 79/100 on Acid3. No smooth scrolling and no AdBlock, but that is understandable considering it's a new browser.

If Google were to just clean up the issues with the installer, this looks like a very promising beginning.

Re:It wont even install for me

[EvanED]

Ordinarily I'd agree completely. But this is Google we're talking about, where "beta" has almost ceased to have meaning. By their typical schedule, Chrome will be out of beta circa 2017.

Straight from Google's legal team...

[enomar]

"In order to keep things simple for our users, we try to use the same set of legal terms (our Universal Terms of Service) for many of our products. Sometimes, as in the case of Google Chrome, this means that the legal terms for a specific product may include terms that don't apply well to the use of that product. We are working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service. This change will apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome."

Rebecca Ward, Senior Product Counsel for Google Chrome