Another Glorious DNW From Google

[eleanorjane]

From Ars Technica:

Google has also added some new security functionality to Chrome. Every time that the user downloads a file, the browser will compare it against a whiltelist of known-good files and publishers. If the file isn't in the whitelist, its URL will be transmitted to Google's servers, which will perform an automatic analysis and attempt to guess if the file is malicious based on various factors like the trustworthiness of its source. If the file is deemed a potential risk, the user will receive a warning.

Google says that data collected by the browser for the malware detection feature is only used to flag malicious files and isn't used for any other purpose. The company will retain the IP address of the user and other metadata for a period of two weeks, at which point all of the data except the URL of the file will be purged from Google's databases.

No thankyou. Time to go back to Safari on the Mac, methinks; I'm already using FF on the PC.

(Crossposted to my other journal, apologies if you see it twice.)

Comments

[lilacsigil]

...well, now I'm glad I never switched. Thanks for the warning.

[plasmoids]

Here's instructions to turn it off, if you can't get switched over immediately: http://kafuka.tumblr.com/post/17595325194/a-warning-to-people-who-download-stuff-using-chrome

[thorfinn]

That's not even the tip of the iceberg of stuff that Chrome reports to Google.

If you want a spyware-removed version of Chrome (I use multiple browsers for work purposes) SRWare Iron is the go.

http://dontrack.us/ and scroll to the bottom is also useful for privacy helping browser extensions.

For Safari, I recently installed Safari Cookies, which has all kinds of awesome options for cookie management, including auto-removal of all non-favourited cookies on quit.