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UnChrome removes the unique ID from Google Chrome

by Lee Mathews on December 16, 2008 at 12:00 PM

Concerns about what Google Chrome does with user data already spawned Iron, a browser based on the Chromium source code that strips various features like error and crash reporting, as well as the unique user identifier assigned to each install.

If you'd prefer to run Google's version of the browser but are still concerned about your privacy, you can also download and run UnChrome. It's a free application that checks to see if you've got Chrome installed and then replaces the unique ID assigned to you with a null value.

After you run it, there is a single pop-up advertisement for another of the developer's applications. Since UnChrome-ing is a one-time thing, it's only a minor annoyance.

[ via Freeware World Team ]

Tags: anonymity, freeware, google-chrome, privacy

Comments

Joe B.Dec 16th 2008 12:32PM

Neutral

Even though the point of this post is based around privacy shortcomings, something that bloggers get really wound up about while using terms like "evil" and "they suck," since it is about a Google product you will never see such references for fear of getting flamed by the "kewl kids" (aka Google fanboys).

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ainstusharDec 16th 2008 1:11PM

Neutral

I don't get a couple of things:

1. Why is it ad-based? I could just call it an adware.
2. Why is it closed-source? I don't know what the heck that program is doing to my system. Who knows it might even be adding its own cookies or telling it to send data to their website... It seems a little fishy.
3. Though I like the idea behind having an alternative, Srware Iron does a lot more than that (such as it has dns pre-fetching and the magic-intellisense-like-address bar disabled). There have also been reports of Srware Iron giving you a better performance than Google Chrome (I am not sure...).

So as of right now, I am fine with Srware Iron.

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JonDec 16th 2008 2:13PM

Neutral

Um i just Dl'd it .. but i am worried when a pop up comes up and is Spelled wrong " Please clode Chrome and restart it " .. i think you meant close ..

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