I am an experienced freelance technology journalist. I have written for Wired, The Next Web, TrustedReviews, The Guardian and the BBC in addition to Forbes. I began in b2b print journalism covering tech companies at the height of the dot com boom and switched to covering consumer technology as the iPod began to take off. A career highlight for me was being a founding member of TrustedReviews. It started in 2003 and we were repeatedly told websites could not compete with print! Within four years we were purchased by IPC Media (Time Warner's publishing division) to become its flagship tech title. What fascinates me are the machinations of technology's biggest companies.
While Google Chrome updates typically install themselves, you can manually trigger an update on a mobile device by using your mobile device's app store, or on a computer by visiting the 'About Google Chrome' page. Google Chrome automatically updates itself in the background when a new version is out, this takes responsibility out of user hands and makes it simple to keep up to date with the latest version of the Chrome app for Mac.
Got a pitch, tip or leak? Contact me on, my professional or via email: gordonATgordonkelly.com. I don't bite. The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. With a market share, Google’s Chrome dominates the web browser market.
Chrome’s seamless updates are a major factor behind its success, but now the browser is under attack after its latest upgrade dropped a nasty surprise on millions of users around the world In a damning entitled ‘Why I’m done with Chrome’, noted cryptographer and Johns Hopkins University professor Matthew Green has exposed a subtle change to the Chrome sign-in experience which has the potential to not only put your data at risk but also unwittingly synchronize it with any other users of your browser. Chrome has a new user interface, but there’s a much less welcome addition as well “From now on, every time you log into a Google property (for example, Gmail), Chrome will automatically sign the browser into your Google account for you. It’ll do this without asking, or even explicitly notifying you,” warned Green. The consequences of this are significant, as anyone who uses your browser now does so with your account. Their browsing history and cookies synchronize with your Google account across all the devices where you use Chrome.
Furthermore, if they log into any Google service it will log you out of the browser and they can import all their bookmarks, settings, etc. When you sign back in, it has the potential to wreak havoc as one wrong click can see your data merged with theirs. “Whether intentional or not, it has the effect of making it easy for people to activate sync without knowing it,” says Green. How many users will notice they have automatically signed into Chrome?
His words have found widespread support. Notably, Green cites one ex-Googler who: “it’d only take one misclick to actually start syncing.” And given how Chrome seamlessly updates, these changes have automatically hit everyone. So what can you do? Right now there’s a hack: i n Chrome navigate to ‘chrome://flags/#account-consistency’ then disable the ‘ Identity consistency between browser and cookie jar’ setting. Yes, it’s not exactly intuitive for the average user.
The good news is Google has promised to make changes. Chrome Product Manager Zach Koch has today published a called ‘Product updates based on your feedback’.
In it, Kock says the next major version of Chrome will allow users to disable the auto sign-in feature in settings, while the user interface will make it clearer when someone is signed in. The problem is users will have to wait until “mid-October” for these changes to be rolled out, so you should remain vigilant for the next three weeks if you aren’t comfortable running the hack. In addition, it’s important to note auto sign-in will remain enabled by default so you will need to turn it off manually. Chrome has earned its position at the top of the browser charts on merit. It’s a slick, reliable, and secure browser which has remained unflappable for almost a decade while rivals have floundered. But Google needs to remember Chrome is not the Internet, and the Internet is not Google services Follow Gordon on, and More On Forbes RECOMMENDED BY FORBES.