Google Chrome 29 Is Out: Omnibox Suggestions, Profile Resetting

An anonymous reader writes "Google today released Chrome version 29 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The new version features improved Omnibox suggestions, profile resetting, as well as new apps and extensions APIs. The biggest change is undoubtedly around how Omnibox suggestions work on the desktop. When the feature arrived in the beta channel, Google said that the improvements were 'based on the recency of websites visited, so you’ll get more contextually relevant suggestions at the right time. ... Chrome 29 for Android meanwhile has received WebRTC support, which enables real-time communication (such as videoconferencing) in the browser without installing any plugins."

Comments

Google Service

[Frankie70]

Does Chrome still install and run background services on Windows? That's the reason I uninstalled Chrome. A Browser is a client side application. It should start when I start it and stop when I stop it. I see no reason for Chrome to run Windows Services. I uninstalled GTalk also for the same reason.

Re:Google Service

[jones_supa]

If I'm not mistaken, in Windows Task Scheduler it can also be seen that the Google update service runs once per hour. Isn't that a bit too often methinks..?

Re:Google Service

[MightyYar]

Without the background task, you'll have no hope of keeping up-to-date. By the time I finished downloading 28, 29 was released.

And now it's 30. Crap.

Re:Google Service

[DarkOx]

I think you could make the argument its not to often, provided its sufficiently light weight. If the thing is able to start up do a quick http request to fetch the latest version number and die, if its unchanged what is the big deal. On the flip side browsers often hold lots of personal information and spend all of their time rendering untrusted documents; making them huge malware targets.

You can take the value proposition away from the malware writes somewhat if you can at least make it also true the vast vast majority of the installed base will patched in a short time window, hours not days.

Re:Google Service

[Anonymous Coward]

I uninstalled windows for the same reason.

Re:Google Service

[IamTheRealMike]

There is/was a Google Update Service on old versions of Windows to, I think, work around bugs in the Windows task scheduler. The latest Windows versions have those bugs fixed and on those versions it uses the task scheduler to do update checks.

Re:Google Service

[MightyYar]

31.

Re:Google Service

[hairyfeet]

It did last I checked which was like 2 versions ago. I too don't like a bunch of background crap running which is why I give my customers Comodo Dragon instead, it has a grand total of one service (dragon update) which is as easy to turn off as unchecking the "automatically check for updates" box whereas i couldn't find a way to kill all the background crap with Chrome.

For those that haven't tried it there is NO phone home, just the option of using their secure DNS in the browser to block phishing but that is totally optional, and all your Chrome extensions WILL work in Dragon as its based on Chromium. It'll take 2 to 3 weeks for this latest change to filter through as they remove any phone home crap but what I like is the fact it never changes UI wise, they moved the option button from the right to the left at version 4 and that was it, its kept the same UI ever since.

As for Chrome what REALLY pisses me off about how Google is handling it is that they have become as bad as the toolbar spammers, you don't know how many times I get called a week because Chrome has hijacked the default browser slot because this or that program is getting paid by Google to spam Chrome. I mean c'mon Google, you have the biggest search engine on the planet hawking your wares, do you REALLY need to spam Chrome with updates to Java and CCleaner?

Re:Google Service

[jones_supa]

Are we sure he's talking about the updater? There's also the option "Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed" at the bottom of the Settings page. I'm not sure what those apps are, but I've always unticked the checkbox to not leave any junk running.

Re:Google Service

[icebike]

I'm not sure what those apps are, but I've always unticked the checkbox to not leave any junk running.

Its not hard to find out what those are. Google is pretty up front about it.
Cloud print, Google Voice, Google drive, etc. All of these are under your control.
Most people are in and out of a browser 100 times a day. Having one idling makes a lot of sense.

Unless you machine is paging furiously, why not use the memory you paid for?

Re:Google Service

[DarkOx]

The updaters are stupid and wasteful, but if you are using the system schedualr, which is running anyway, I don't see a problem.

Re:Google Service

[icebike]

Seriously, I don't get this warning.

I click the pdf, it opens in chrome, and I tell it to save a copy.

Have you ever considered that maybe it actually found malware in the pdf's java script?

Re:Google Service

[Anonymous Coward]

Other OSs have recognised this problem and solved it (horribly) long ago.

FTFY.

First of all from a repositorys perspective.. bandwidth consumed updating linux software is TINY. From microsofts perspective.. who is going to pay the bills when 500+ million users suddenly are updating several hundreds of megabytes. microsoft gets like 20-30 bucks or something from the PC maker to support a single user for the lifetime of the OS.

Secondly what makes you think that application developers are going to be OK with microsoft handling their updates? What .. suddenly oracle and adobe are going to let a third party be in charge of delivering their products? I smell a new anti-trust lawsuit... you ms trolls are in some dreamland.

But forgetting all that its funny how shitty the repository model is. Because of how broken linux dependency management is ... the freaking repository has to maintain a dependency chain and make sure that all application dependencies inside the repository are consistent (which they often fail to do). Furthermore.. simply unknowingly adding an extra repository can dump you in dependency hell on linux "Ohh... how do i get this shiny gnome theme... just add this repository" oops.. you dumped all the dependency management work on the repository maintainer rather than baking the tech in the OS.

Windows ofcource has solved this LONG LONG ago with Windows component store (winsxs). If you follow microsoft's best practices while developing & distributing software it is currently impossible to encounter dependency hell on windows.

This is another example of Windows being designed to be defective

hahaha okay buddy... continue living in your fantasy land

Pardon my troll, but...

[Red Jesus]

I hate to troll what could be a pleasant discussion about a new release of a popular web browser, but Chrome sends lots of extra data to Google and Google sends lots of extra data to the NSA. I therefore do not trust Chrome.

I understand that this is irrelevant to the current topic. If I don't want to use Chrome, I should just use another web browser, right? Like how I didn't want to use GMail, so I got a Lavabit account in 2009. (Seriously!) But Lavabit is gone now. And when I updated my friends with my new email address, I sullenly noted that well over half of them use GMail because the convenience outweighs the loss of privacy.

So... I'm tired and afraid. Google is integrating more features into the browser that are based on the "recency of the websites visited"? That information will almost certainly be radioed back home to Google. And when the NSA is finally forced to answer for their sins before Congress, they'll point to how many people downloaded Google Chrome 29 and they'll say, "People don't mind being tracked! They sign up for this stuff voluntarily!" Regardless of whether that's a good reason for the NSA to be able to read my email, it's going to come up repeatedly in the inquiry, and that one fact might be enough to allow the program continue.

I have no choice but to see the existence of Google Chrome 29 as a threat to my freedom. I wish I could be more reasonable about it, or at least keep my stupid opinions to myself, but being reasonable about Snowden wasn't enough to save my email account.

*sigh*

Re:Pardon my troll, but...

[jez9999]

my computer keeps crashing completely when I try to go to Facebook or Wired in Chrome.

Full on, mouse frozen, nothing moves, must hold button down for 10 seconds to restart computer frozen. I don't know what the hell it's trying to look for

Sounds like it's trying to do you a favour.

Re:Pardon my troll, but...

[SoupGuru]

Oh for God's sake. The NSA has compromised everything. Google is no exception. Google is actually doing more than any other company to fight the gag orders and expose the extent of the monitoring. If you're concerned about privacy , do you stick with any number of companies that are compromised or do you stick with one company that is compromised but shows an extreme dislike of it? And not only that, Google is a company that has clout and resources.

I'm not trying to advocate for Google here, I just don't see too many other companies so publicly pissed off at what they're being forced to do.

Get the Source Code here ..

[dgharmon]

"We don't know since Google keeps the source code secret."

"The Chromium codebase consists of hundreds of thousands of files"

Re:Get the Source Code here ..

[kthreadd]

It is true that Google bases Chrome on Chromium, but the source code for Chrome itself is not available and as a user you don't know exactly what they have added, removed or changed.

Make it more Firefox Like

[wisnoskij]

I really do not want a bar that auto searches through my history. 99% of my history is one off sites I will never visit again. Give me a bar like FF's where I can exclusively search through my bookmarks (you know the list of sites that I want to visit again).

Fix the bugs first?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a chrome user. I read the chrome update, and said "what?".

For background: I'm a google voice user. As far as I can tell, Google has abandoned voice in place. I'm a chrome user. Except chrome has huge issues with streaming video: you'll find thousands of complaints of no volume. I use facebook only to read what my friends are doing, and yet gmail continually wants to try to combine my accounts. Gmail wants my phone number. It keeps trying to put my real name on youtube account, which I repeatedly deny. It GOT that real name attached to my gmail because it was required by Google voice, and it connected the two without asking.

Google has lost their polish. They're no longer putting out products that are improvements over what is generally available. Instead, they're trying to lock in my data while letting incredible opportunities like Google Voice languish with no attention. Major bugs aren't being fixed. And no, I DON'T want to use google+ or whatever the hell it is.

Google is quickly becoming Microsoft.

Re:Trust

[Shikaku]

The one that's ISO standard and would be in ABC order.
2013-08-20

So run it portable

[Radical Moderate]

http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/google_chrome_portable

Won't do squat until you start it.