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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."
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.
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?
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
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???
Teamwork is essential. It gives the enemy someone else to shoot at
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.
Google lawyers may need to learn a new word that ATT was just taught... Unconscionable
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.
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.
.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.
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
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
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.
I think... I think he's trying to communicate with us, but I can't quite make out what he's saying.
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/
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).
The New Book That Could Pay You Back -100 Times Over: www.Economtricks.com
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.
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"
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.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Or just press "cancel" at the EULA and get the download anyway, like I did.
c++;
Apparently kids are not allowed to use chrome.
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.
Preventing Paranoia: When does Google Chrome talk to Google.com?. Please read it carefully.
In Soviet America, Google Chrome surfs you!
Damn them for not making their codebase absolutely perfect from day one! Software should spring into life fully formed, like Athena from Zeus' forehead!
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.
Congratulations - you just set the Slashdot record for the least comprehensible post ever.
It blocks Slashdot? It is a bigger success than I thought!
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Gosh, you would think this was beta software or something.
I want my money back.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
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?
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.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
You mean that's *not* what happens when I run "svn checkout" ? Lies! Damn lies!
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.
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.
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.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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.
You'll change your mind when Duke Nukem Forever comes out.
lol: You see no door there!
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.
Exactly. The GoogleUpdater was still running after I uninstalled. Don't be evil, my ass...
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)
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
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.
Impossible. Obviously, spam is unsigned.
FWIW, My company just banned using Chrome based on the EULA.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
"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