Using Google Chrome? Check this out.

[obxhead]

Participate in charitable projects with the rest of the Chrome community. Install the Chrome for a Cause extension and your web browsing will drive donations made to charities around the world. Between December 15 - 19, every tab you open will support a good cause. To find out more about this effort and the organizations we're partnering with, visit http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/p/cause/#tnc

You'll need a Google account to participate.

It's quick and easy to install the extension. If you're already using Chrome it's an easy way to help some charities.

[Common Sense Party]

1. Now it worked for me

It didn't the first time. Maybe too many charitable hits

[obxhead]

2. Got it fixed now.

:hi:

[Common Sense Party]

3. The link was probably fine

It just didn't go through the first time I tried. I thought that was ironic, since Google's whole raison d'etre is to link people to stuff. Can you not choose your own charity? It can only go to one of their 5 selected ones?

[obxhead]

4. No, it was a broken link.

I had tried it myself as soon as I posted and got a 404. For some reason my first copy/paste cut the end of the link off.

No, I don't see how you get to pick your charities, but you can view what charities are being given to before installing the extension.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[HopeHoops]

6. Chrome is a shitty browser and nothing but a data collection tool for marketing purposes.

Google has made no effort to hide this fact, even from the very beginning. The only reason they wrote it is to sell your browsing data to rake in advertising revenue. Don't expect it to ever become a real browser.

[obxhead]

7. I've got news for you.

They all do that. Thinking otherwise is quite foolish.

As for my browsing experience with multiple browsers Chrome is the fastest for my needs. Opinions are like assholes though, everyone has one.

[Ezlivin]

8. Who is this "they" that you speak of?

Apple doesn't track my movements when I use Safari; Mozilla doesn't track me when I use Firefox/Camino.

Yes, cookies are created when I visit websites, but I can easily delete them or set my preferences to either not accept any or to alert me so that I can decide that particular cookie's fate.

[obxhead]

9. So why do both of those browsers offer plug ins that

stop them from tracking your movements?

[Ezlivin]

22. Okay, who is the "them" that you speak of?

We still haven't learned who the "they" are.

Who is tracking your movements?

[obxhead]

34. I guess you'll have to explain it to me as you're the one

making the claim that data is being mined by "they" and "them".

[Ezlivin]

39. Uh, you're the one I'm quoting below

They all do that. Thinking otherwise is quite foolish.

So why do both of those browsers offer plug ins that stop them from tracking your movements?

Okay, so now that we both see your posts and your references to "they" and "them" perhaps you can enlighten me as to who these entities are?

[obxhead]

41. ok, whatever

"Chrome is a shitty browser and nothing but a data collection tool for marketing purposes"

All browsers are owned by someone or some corporation.

All browsers mine data.

The actual "they" and "them" is of minor concern. The owners and developers of the programs are your "they" and "them" and all browsers mine data. Clear enough for you?

Excellent attempt at distracting from the point that all browsers mine data by some wild goose chase on who owns what.

[Ezlivin]

45. I think you got your wires crossed somewhere

I never made the claim that Chrome is a "shitty browser." I have it installed on my computer and I use it occasionally, as I'm a web developer and always have to keep up with the field.

When you make the statement "All browsers mine data." you have to back that up with something. Can you provide a link for that particular statement?

If you have a properly configured firewall and network traffic monitoring software installed, then you can see if any application is attempting to transmit data from your computer.

[HopeHoops]

10. You probably have those "loyalty card" data tracking things on your keychain too, right?

[obxhead]

11. You probably have a SS number,

credit cards, debit cards, a license plate on your car, discount shopping cards for a dozen or more stores, have purchased anything online, have ever had a package delivered to your house, have gone through a mortgage, etc etc etc.

You are being tracked. It is happening right now regardless of what computer brand, OS, or browser you are using.

[HopeHoops]

16. Sounds like I've been working with computers since before you were born.

Don't lecture me on that crap. There's a major difference between protecting what you can and voluntarily submitting your every move for marketing purposes. If you like all of those pop-up ads and unsolicited e-mails, that's fine. If you like paying higher prices because you think you're getting a "discount" by using one of those silly loyalty cards, that's fine. You do that. The marketing companies love people like you. Enjoy the SPAM - and don't expect the so called "do not call list" to keep them away - you signed that away a long time ago.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

20. then maybe YOU should stop lecturing people

about their choice of 'crappy browsers'...

sP

[HopeHoops]

24. Hey, all I was doing was pointing out that an 82 data-collection Yugo isn't a 2010 Camero.

[obxhead]

25. Sounds like your good at ass-umptions.

My internet life is nice and spam free. Every now and then I do get an email spam, but my filters pick it up nicely.

If your so computer literate you would know that spam is picked up in many ways and filtering it out is a fairly easy task these days.

[HopeHoops]

26. This would be a really fun time to post some ASCII insults...

:evilgrin:

[obxhead]

28. lol

Maybe I should dig out some of my old basic programing books to throw at ya.

[HopeHoops]

30. BASIC? I'm talking about assembly - 6502, 6510, 6809, 8088, 8086, Z-80/81, 680X0, x86, etc.

You know, the shit where you had to read ASCII and translate the opcodes and operands to know what the code was doing. Hell, I've still got functional Timex Sinclairs, an Apple II+, C=64, Amiga 500 & 2000, 286, 386, 486, P90 and probably a few others I have forgotten about. I pull them out once in a while to make sure they work. They all still do.

[obxhead]

31. Yeah I've got an old Kaypro sitting in a closet somewhere.

Monochrome green ftw.

[HopeHoops]

33. Okay. I take it back. You can't be that much younger than me.

I remember those. They came out about the same time as the Osborne (which I had to work with - HAD being the operative - fucking floppy drives wouldn't stay calibrated and I had to disassemble it to twiddle the speed to get it to read discs.)

[Statistical]

14. Chrome launched in 2008 and has grown to 9.8% marketshare (faster than any other browser)

Safari launched in 2003 and has merely 5.2% marketshare despite being the default install on all Apple products.

Which is the one that will never be a real browser.

[Toucano]

17. Well, they're all "real" browsers. What's the other option, "imaginary"?

Market penetrations doesn't define real vs. unreal, does it?

I guess I don't understand the terms we're using.

[Statistical]

21. See this:

Persona I responded to claimed Chrome wasn't a "real" browser.

"Don't expect it (Chrome) to ever become a real browser."

I was just pointing out that Chrome has achieved more as a "non real" browser in 2 years than Safari has in 7 years.

It has higher standards compliance.
It has higher performance.
It has higher marketshare.

Not really sure what metric makes a browser "real" but whatever metric Crhome is certainly real enough.

[Toucano]

38. I see now.

That person is really misinformed.

Google® Chrome is just a derivative of Chromium.

[HopeHoops]

18. Apples and oranges (well, non-apples).

What's the overall Apple market share? 5.2% of the browser market is pretty fucking good given the restricted platform. And Safari is a real browser. I've only found a few points where it isn't up to the Firefox standard and they've probably fixed those since then. As for market share, IE was always championed as having so much of the market share but it has NEVER been a real browser - it STILL isn't CSS 2.0 compliant.

[Statistical]

19. 1) Safari is available for PC.

However adoption rate is essentially 0%. Those choosing to install something other than IE chose firefox and chrome.

My comment on real browser is based on the person I responded to saying this:
"Don't expect it to ever become a real browser."

Chrome is one of the most compliant browsers out there, it is innovative in both security and stability, and has grown from 0% to 9.8% in 2 years (faster than any other browser) despite not having any native install platform (IE = windows, safari = Apple).

So under what metric is Chrome not a "real browser"?

[HopeHoops]

23. Oh, my. Where to begin.

How about plug-ins. Forget anything like Ad-Block. The damn thing doesn't even have the CAPACITY for plug-ins, much less any on the table.

The text formatting leaves a lot to be desired. I've seen machines running it and it would be almost as big a nightmare to code around as IE (not quite, but almost). It isn't even close on CSS 2.0 compliance, but I will admit that it is ahead of IE.

DoubleClick owns your browsing habits. You sign off on that when you install it. Those inexplicable delays while it is loading the animated advertisements are your own doing. I shut all of that crap off in Firefox.

No drop-down bar? WTF is up with that? :shrug:

The history function is anemic at best. There's no organizational capability to it.

Image loading is a crap shoot. Good luck.

MOST curiously, it has problem loading a lot of Google Ads. You would THINK they would have solved that issue before releasing the damn thing.

I hope you don't like YouTube. Originally it couldn't load any of them. Apparently it is capable of dealing with some of them now but still gives a "not available" message for ones that are definitely available in all other browsers - including IE.

Privacy? The entire thing was designed to be a privacy invasion and data capture device, obviously to the detriment of actual features. Perhaps you didn't notice this in the license agreement:
"11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services."
That applies to anything you transmit through Chrome.

I hope you don't use RSS feeds. If you do, you'll understand.

Security? That's a joke. It is based on the old WebKit and still has the "Java bug". Why would they care about security when they're dedicated to capturing your data?

How about laptops not going to sleep when Chrome is running? Use a proxy server? Good luck. SSL Client authentication is questionable at best and I sure wouldn't trust the little "lock" icon. It wasn't even supported at first. How about changing your "Most Visited Sites" list? The installation program will set off a number of virus programs including Kaspersky and Zone Alarm.

But perhaps the most disgusting aspect of the thing is that it is a resource hog. It is happy to consume as much memory as possible as a "live cache" and can leave you wondering if your machine is useful for anything else while it is running because of CPU consumption. These are not "plays nice with other children" methods for writing software. They never have been and never will be.

Need I go on?

[Statistical]

36. All nonesense and hyerbole.

"How about plug-ins. Forget anything like Ad-Block. The damn thing doesn't even have the CAPACITY for plug-ins, much less any on the table."

Wrong. Chrome has both extensions and plugins including mutliple ad-blockers.

"I hope you don't like YouTube. Originally it couldn't load any of them. Apparently it is capable of dealing with some of them now but still gives a "not available" message for ones that are definitely available in all other browsers - including IE."
Never had a problem. In fact I just went to youtube and clicked on two dozen or so videos just to see if I could reproduce it. I can't.

"How about laptops not going to sleep when Chrome is running? Use a proxy server? Good luck. SSL Client authentication is questionable at best and I sure wouldn't trust the little "lock" icon. It wasn't even supported at first. How about changing your "Most Visited Sites" list? The installation program will set off a number of virus programs including Kaspersky and Zone Alarm."

My laptop hibernates just fine with Chrome running. I do use a proxy server at work never had a problem w/ Chrome. SSL Client Authentication? No issue there. Chrome even nicely indicates when page isn't secure (crossed out https) due to insecure content in a secure page (like iframe). As far as false positives in AV software is that dig on Chrome or on crappy AV software?

"No drop-down bar? WTF is up with that?"
Oh no not a missing drop-down bar. Just type in the omnibox it will popup what you were looking for.

"MOST curiously, it has problem loading a lot of Google Ads. You would THINK they would have solved that issue before releasing the damn thing."
Not sure what this magic "problem" is but via a combination of ad-blocker and hostman I never see ads anyways. I am certainly not going to complain if a browser (so you claim) doesn't display them.

Still despite all these so called problems it continues to gain marketshare. Safari the most worthless browser out there languishes at ~5% as it has for multiple years. When you consider MAC OS (which has safari installed) has higher marketshare it shows how much the public hates the browser.

[Hannah Bell]

12. "donations to unnamed 'charities'" in exchange for your personal info & whatever else they can get.

no thanks

with google i bet most of the money goes to covert ops

[obxhead]

13. The charities are clearly labeled at the link.

thanks for the kick.

The Nature Conservancy
charity: water
Doctors Without Borders
Un Techo para mi País
Room to Read

[Statistical]

15. What personal information? Didn't ask me for a single thing.

[Hannah Bell]

32. google chrome data mining

http://coderrr.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/google-chrome-privacy-worse-than-you-think/

http://venturebeat.com/2010/01/25/creepy-google-ad/

[apocalypsehow]

27. Kick, Rec. It's amazing that your OP has drawn some of the replies it has. Crapping on a charitable

effort? Really? Really?

Some days I just can't believe some of the most innocuous - and, in this case, beneficial to humanity - things I will observe folks are willing to initiate flame wars over.

Thanks for the OP.

[obxhead]

29. Thank you

I wasn't trying to make this a thread about the merits or faults of various browsers. I was simply asking current Chrome users to take a look at this extension.

[WolverineDG]

40. Yup, happens all the time

kudos to the OP & those who persist in trying to make a change for the better in this world.

dg

[walldude]

43. Warning people about a shitty browser that spies on you

even when you are not using your browser is not "crapping on a charity" it's warning people that there are other ways to help without screwing yourself over in the process.

[fatbuckel]

35. I`ve banned Chrome from our network. Totally unsafe and just a crappy browser.

[walldude]

42. Yup... The absolute worst...

I spent quite awhile figuring out what Chrome was doing in the background. When it wasn't open it was still using 30% of my computer resources. It's spyware. Period. Get rid of it if you have'nt already.

[GoCubsGo]

37. For those using ANY browser...

http://www.goodsearch.com/default.aspx

You can choose your charity, and make money for them each time you do a search. Additional fund-raising opportunities for online shoppers, too.

[williesgirl]

44. done and rec'd