On Google, Chrome, and Being Paranoid

Basic info: everyone, in order to access the internet, has to have a browser. There are five real contenders: Safari (Apple), Internet Explorer (Microsoft), Firefox (Mozilla), Opera (Opera), and Chrome (Google). Most of you, I would guess, are using Internet Explorer, as that’s pretty much the default browser on most Windows-based computers. (Which is too bad, really.) I use Safari; it’s faster, less buggier, and was designed to run on a Mac, because Apple designed it. Firefox and Opera are pretty good; I had Firefox as a backup browser but finally deleted it because I rarely used it.

Google wants to change your mind. Their browser-called Chrome-is fairly new, and I spent a few days some time back playing with it. It’s okay, I guess. Since I haven’t seen any major speed improvements, nor have I seen anything that makes it any better than Safari to me, I finally removed it from the Mac. It’s different, but really not any better than Safari to and/or for me.

Now, I am not really an Apple snob. I like to joke with family and friends, but as I have said before you need to have a computer that works well for you. Just because I think a Mac is a better deal, has less bugs, far less security issues, works better, looks cleaner, weighs a bit less and is a better machine than any Windows-based PC--ever--doesn’t mean you should run right out and get one right now. After dinner or even tomorrow will be soon enough. (Hmmm...maybe I am a bit of an Apple snob.)

But Chrome didn’t really impress me. You there--you with the Windows PC-- you might like it, however. It’s an improvement over IE 8. (So is IE 6, however.)

Google hasn’t taken over the Earth...yet. They’re getting close, but I will continue to not go there. I will keep using Safari, iWork and iLife, and not allow Google to totally take over my so-called online life. 

Should the fact that Google has a large amount of information on you bother you? Maybe. It sort of bothered me for a bit. 

I’ve spent a lot of time not creating a big digital footprint. This is partially because I work online, and partially by choice: there was a time in my life where I figured out the less people knew about me, the less they could tease, torment, and make my life miserable with. That has kind of stayed with me, and while I’ve gotten much better about this kind of thing, I like to keep a somewhat low profile. 

Now...Blogspot is owned by Google; therefore, they host this blog. I have a gmail account I am using for dissertation purposes and a few other things. Picasa (owned by Google) is where I have pictures for the blog stored. (I generally as a rule do not put my personal pics online; I do not want them harvested by a picture bot and used somewhere else without my knowledge.) Since I have all the above, I also have an iGoogle page, with widgets for everything from comics to the CBC newsreader. (I deleted the Google Latitude widget however, as I decided I don’t want the world to know where I am at all times. It’s none of the world’s business to know where I am 24/7.) I have a YouTube account, which is also owned by Google. And, of course, I use Google to find things; it’s the usually the default search engine for Safari but you can also use Yahoo search or Bing. I do not have Google Earth on the Mac, though it is on the iPod for now. (It’s one of those apps that “seemed like a good idea at the time.”) 

So, Google now knows what I like to watch, what kind of news I like, some of my hobbies, that I have boring email, etc. All of which can be targeted to advertisers, to sell me on a trip to Honolulu, Billund, Toronto, Cupertino, San Francisco, Nashville, or Vancouver. Or to sell me more stuff for the Mac. Or to let me know that there’s a new animated series that’s just been uploaded. Or to try and convince me that I really need whatever it is that is being touted. I also get ads trying to convince me of other things I allegedly need as well. (I can’t think of a reason I need--or want--bust enhancement creams, for example.)

It smells like Big Brother to me, in a sense. I could get really paranoid about this constant monitoring of my online stuff. 

But it doesn’t smell like Big Brother at the same time, because it is not all centrally located, and no single person could possibly keep track of one person by attempting to sift through all that data. And in my case, there just isn’t anything to hide, really. (So maybe it’s more like kid sister than Big Brother.)  

Now, I could move this blog to another blog site, move the pictures to flickr, close the gmail account, and reduce Google’s hold to simply YouTube for now. I won’t; it all works pretty well together. Why reinvent the wheel? Besides, I can change some things to Yahoo!...and I find I’d still have the same issue. So, I allow Google access to all this information knowingly, knowing that any info I use will be stored somewhere. There has to be a certain level of trust. 

Still...it never hurts to be careful, because you never know who’s minding the store. 

Enough for now.