Google Chrome 25 Will Serve Searches Over SSL From the Omnibox For All Users

An anonymous reader writes "Google on Friday announced yet another security improvement for Chrome 25. In addition to killing silent extension installation, the omnibox in Google's browser will send all searches over a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connection. Chrome already does this for users who are signed in to Google: when they search from the address bar, their queries are sent over HTTPS. As of Chrome 25, however, the same will happen for users who aren't signed in to Google."

Comments

Great

[Spy Handler]

good to know that Google values our privacy so much.

Not like that other internet site that sells everything about you except your underwear to the highest bidder, and forces you to use your real name for everything.

Re:Great

[fish waffle]

Yes, it's a double-edged sword. On one hand, snooping on what you search for by intermediaries is a bit harder, but on the other hand attributing a specific search to you is now just a bit easier.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Not like that other internet site that sells everything about you except your underwear to the highest bidder, and forces you to use your real name for everything.

I think you mean to imply that Google do in fact sell information about you and I don't think there's any evidence of that. They gather as much info as they can, they use it and aim to profit from it by advertising to you - and that may be bad enough - but as far as I can tell they don't sell it to anyone else, rather they hoard it and preserve it as their own goldmine. Am I wrong?

How does firefox handle searches?

[ZiakII]

Now I'm interested in how Firefox handle searches? Anyone know?

Re:How does firefox handle searches?

[Hatta]

However you want it to. Just click the drop down arrow at the left of the search box, and it will give you a selection of engines. If you want Google SSL, it's there. If you want Duck Duck Go, it's there. Mine even has Wikipedia, Twitter, and Amazon entries.

I'm not sure how comprehensive the default install is, this particular selection of search engines might have been configured by the person who packages it for Debian.

Re:How does firefox handle searches?

[mrheckman]

Use the HTTPS-anywhere addon, from the EFF (https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere). It has rules that cause Firefox to automatically use HTTPS for dozens of web sites, including Google Search and APIs.

Re:How does firefox handle searches?

[markdavis]

I think that one using Google would worrying about security of their searches a little funny and ironic. The Google way: Give us access to all your Email, all your contacts, your location, your calls, the apps you install, all your searches, all your comments on Google+, your research on Google Maps, your shopping, all your purchases with Google Wallet, tracking you with Adsense from millions of sites, storing your passwords in Google's browsers, recording your network passwords in your Android accounts, sniffing the neighborhood's WiFi, storing your photos and comments in Picasa, holding pictures of your house and cars/property in Google Earth and Streetview, recording your viewing habits on Google TV, sifting through your files stored on Google Drive, following your movements with location history, who you chat with on Google Talk and Hangouts, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc

Anyway, if you ARE concerned about the privacy of your searches, this visit this site in *ANY* browser: https://startpage.com/ And note that when you visit there in Firefox, they will provide a link called "Add to Firefox" and that will install their info into your search box which is always encrypted. But most importantly, you are not giving away all your searching to Google, even though you get most of the same results as if you went to Google directly. One should never have all their eggs in one basket.

Re:How does firefox handle searches?

[markdavis]

I will explain what it means...

You might trust Google, but do you really want to trust them with EVERYTHING? If you separate off your searching to something else, it greatly enhances your privacy, especially since you are not "signed in" to something like Startpage. I am not saying that Startpage is some great, perfect system (pick something else, then). All I am saying is that from a privacy standpoint, it makes sense to not to give ALL your data to one entity. Hence- not putting all your eggs in one basket.

Version 25???

[Sebastopol]

All those background updates and I never once stopped to think about what rev we were on.

Huh.

Well played, google. Well played.

Re:Version 25???

[markdavis]

Yeah, because there is something just so classy and sexy about a browser that doesn't tell you what is going or and is resistant to customizations. Even sexier when it is tied to Google, is closed source, and does who-knows-what with all that stuff you do/see/search (Chrome is secret, like IE... at least Chromium you can see inside the code, like Firefox).

Well played, indeed.

People using Chrome and who are also worried about a third party seeing their search queries: priceless.

Re:Version 25???

[markdavis]

1) Chrome is not open source. It is based on Chromium, which is open sourced, but the build Google takes is not identical code. They can put anything in it they wish.

2) Fiddler is a proxy, as such, the browser will know it is not directly connected.

3) Even if one could capture all data as it would normally travel, it doesn't mean one would be able to understand everything it sends. If a blob of data goes to Google at some point, especially when already connecting to their servers with every other page doing adsense, exactly how are we mere, non-Google mortals going to know it is all above-the-board?

4) Again, RLZ might be open source, but their COMPILE of CHROME that contains it is not... so what you see might not be what you get. Open-source projects, like Firefox, Linux, OpenOffice, etc, are examined and compiled by third parties and not primarily distributed as a owner/maker binary. Even Chromium seems to be obfuscated in ways that make it unsuitable for others to compile and distribute: http://ostatic.com/blog/making-projects-easier-to-package-why-chromium-isnt-in-fedora

I am not saying Chrome *is* spyware. But I am saying it has the ability to be, and it might be, and we can't really know. It is being released by a company who has a lot to gain by gathering as much info as possible, and a lot of practice doing so (and a huge, unquestioning following).

Google values privacy

[pitchpipe]

Google does this because they value privacy: the privacy of the data of every aspect of your personal and professional life. The privacy of this data has great value ($$$). Some other company getting hold of this data would certainly lessen its value.

Re:Google values privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you're just trying to get a cheap laugh from the paranoid crowd, but this is actually one of the best arguments about why Google will never sell your data to anyone. Analyzing it to make their own services better is the most valuable use for it, so they'd be stupid to let it out of the company.

Re:How about adding a search box?

[ArcadeNut]

The address bar is a search bar. Type in what you're searching for in place of the URL and it will search for you, or are you referring to something else?

SSL for searches is a good idea

[dubner]

Using SSL for searches will prevent tragedies such as this.

(Not the wife and mistress teaming up which can sometimes lead to tragedy. I'm talking about the IT department discovering searches for making poison.)

--
Joe

Re:DuckDuckGo

[jones_supa]

For a couple of weeks I tried being a DuckDuckGo rebel, but the search results were so often so much worse than of Google's that it eventually just got too clunky.