Three Things To Do After Installing Google Chrome

by Keith Dsouza | Translate | Print
Monday, 20th Apr 2009 | Share




This is a guest post by Shankar Ganesh from Killer Tech Tips. If you want to write a guest post for us, feel free to contact us.

is a pretty slick and fast browser that is out in the wild today. Although it hasn’t captured a big market share, I bet a lot of people will begin using it the day Google Chrome makes it easier for developers to make add-ons.

Although Google Chrome is radical in many aspects, it still comes with a few annoyances that you should disable or remove, and here’s how you can do that:


#1. Anonymize Your Installation With Unchrome

Every copy of Google Chrome that you download has a unique user ID associated with it and who knows, it could be used to track your usage habits and identify you later. Your first task after downloading and installing Google Chrome should be to remove this unique user ID.

unchrome

It’s not a Herculean task, really. Just download a nifty tool called UnChrome from here, run the program and click Remove Unique ID now. Make sure Google Chrome is not running when you start UnChrome.

#2. Disable Auto Suggestions

Google Chrome seemingly tracks all that you type in the address bar and suggest you web pages and other things. People who are very much concerned about their privacy should turn off this auto suggest feature immediately after downloading Google Chrome.

 gglchrm2

Just click on the Customize icon in the right most corner of the address bar and go to options. Uncheck the option that says “Use a suggestion service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar”. You’re done.

#3. Disable the GoogleUpdate.exe Service

When you install Google Chrome, a background service called GoogleUpdate.exe is installed as well. This Google Update service allows in updating Google Chrome from the background without any user intervention. Although it doesn’t consume huge resources, you can still consider disabling the service if you’re on a limited bandwidth connection.

 disable-googleupate

You can’t simply delete the Google Update entry from msconfig and move on – it’ll still be running if you remove it from there. There’s a quick guide on how to remove/disable Google Update.exe in box XP and Vista, which you can read here.

Do you have any other tips on beating Google Chrome’s annoyances? Share them in the comments.

Shankar Ganesh writes on Killer Tech Tips on everything ranging from fixing iTunes to checking BSNL Broadband Usage.

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  1. Arun Shivaram
    May 16th, 2009 at 12:30 am #

    Is it possible to remove the unique id in portable chrome, the one mentioned here, http://www.labnol.org/software/download-portable-google-chrome-for-usb-drive/4406/ ?

    [Reply]


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