My view of the world

Google Chrome has been released. Whoopy– another web browser.

This one isn’t even an original idea, instead it’s based on an old version of Safari complete with all the old vulnerabilities.

The Google Chrome user-agent shows that Chrome is actually WebKit 525.13 (Safari 3.1), which is an outdated/vulnerable version of that browser.

It’s susceptible to the ancient art of carpet bombing and under Vista it drops downloads directly on to the desktop.

BTW: Apple patched the carpet-bombing flaw with Safari v3.1.2.

Chrome has potential, but what good is a really fast browser if it’s going to leave you vulnerable outdated attacks that the rest of the world has already dealt with?

It seems rather silly -or perhaps arrogantly overconfident- to release it while it still contains critical, well known, problems.

Being a Google product it will undoubtedly spy on us at least as much as IE-(pick-a-number).

Google records everything you do. Every search and every link you follow from that search.

Chrome has a privacy mode; Google says you can create an “incognito” window “and nothing that occurs in that window is ever logged on your computer.” (The new Internet Explorer calls this InPrivate. see “porn mode”)

Yep, it keeps your browser from logging where you go, but it doesn’t keep Google from knowing and it seems to me that that is the real problem.

Google in particular as shown that it can search back 2 years to dig up a specific individual’s browsing history. Just because they were helping the police doesn’t mean that they aren’t using it to make money the rest of the time.

Our browsing habits are worth billions to advertisers so you don’t think trust a company like Google not to grab that profit at the first opportunity. –M$ has been recording everything there is to know about our computers and network activity for years and look where they are.

Speaking of a lack of privacy:
I just read something that says FaceBook not only tracks you on their site but continues to track you after you leave. Of course they fixed the problem.. really they did.

According to FaceBook: The company made an important change, saying that it would not send messages about users’ Internet activities without getting explicit approval each time.

They still track everything you do, they just promise not to tell anyone. I believe them… Really.. Why would they lie?

If you believe they aren’t going to find a profitable use for all that data they continue to collect I’d like to sell you some paint for that bridge you just bought.

I found a flash site with a tarantula you can manipulate, or you can just let it follow your cursor.
It’s at onemotion.com, which is a site built by someone with a serious interest in flash.

Here’s a screen cap of the critter.

There are some flash games but the spider is my favorite. If you have Flash 6 or higher give it a try.

The screen capture from the flash animation was done with the Flashfox addon Fireshot.