I removed Chrome browser from my notebook earlier today. The notebook'* hard drive was always running, and was taking forever to do any searches or load web-pages. I had almost nothing running in the background except Norton Anti Virus. I watched the memory performance monitor for some time and noticed Chrome, even when the browser was not loaded, was taking up almost all available memory and getting down to zero available memory. My notebook has 6 GIG RAM and a Intel CORE i5.

When Chrome came out it was a lean and mean browser. I am wondering if it now a huge tracking hog, capturing everything I was doing even when the browser was not active. I just noticed Chrome not only had what I was searching for at home, but had my searches on my smartphone and work computer accessible from my personal notebook.

Anyone else remove Chrome from their Computer?

Yea, I've noticed that GC is quite the resource hog myself. I just tallied up the programs that its running...478MB.

As far as tracking, yes. If your logged into Chrome via your Gmail account, Google keeps track of a lot of things you do via the web. Including remembering your passwords. Which, I find disturbing a little bit, but that came in handy once when I used a different PC and forgot something.

I've been contemplating removing it myself just because of it being a hog. Now that you said something, I might go back to FF.

....I know your watching Google, but are you listening?

It hit me that the NSA is likely monitoring my government notebook, and since I was using Chrome and signed in they could monitor my personal computer. One keyword search that brought up a unwanted result could trigger the NSA tracking what I do. I am now on FF at home....

Chrome was taking up 3 GIG on my personal notebook. I imagine it was not supposed to and had something wrong, but none the less I want a simple, and lean browser. Not a browser that is using computer resources tracking and archiving every keystroke.

If your not doing anything illegal, I wouldn't worry about them. They have bigger fish to fry....but, that doesn't exclude you from being monitored. And I'm sure they don't care about your goat ****....J/K!

And it really makes you wonder. With these big companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Linux etc etc, do they make back doors in their software that allows them COMPLETE access to your personal life? Especially recently with FB Messenger. Look at the permissions for that software when you get a chance. It'* DISTURBING. I no longer have it on my phone anymore.

Good stuff to always keep in mind. I am not sure I can easily call Google and get a live person that can help me if I have a problem, issue or concern. But I sense they can tell me more "about me" than I know myself.

I am not doing anything wrong, but I don't want a search word like ISIS or terrorism flag my system at work and have some security geek tracking me and looking to put the screws to me or anyone for that matter. Theses geeks are trying to justify their high pay and existence.

A incommunicado old buddy of mine was a Navy pilot- pretty talented guy. He was also a bit paranoid of all the tracking. He only bought prepaid phones, changed his e-mail, ISP, and everything else every few months. I always thought he was nuts with all the proactive "stay off the grid" actions he was doing. Maybe he had some insight into what was going on. I am amazed Google (and likely Facebook, etc) are spending money tracking every keystroke we make and paying to archive and store it. That is a huge amount of data and likely take some very sophisticated and costly software and hardware to accomplish. How will Google and Facebook make a return on capturing and storing all that data?

Ad placement. They don't care that you had sex with 35 women while your married to 4 different wives at the same time. They want to know WHO to target when it comes to ads. Every website is now designed to host THOUSANDS of ads only directed to certain individuals based on what they know about you, NOT what they think you like. If your sexually active, they may target condom ads at you. If you all you do is talk about a certain brand of laundry detergent on FB, then your going to get all sorts of ads about Tide or the like. And companies pay BIG money for this "data farming".

My brother seems a little paranoid too. After retiring from the AF/Pentagon a few years ago, his insistance on NOT having a smart phone doubled. Even our phone calls has diminished to non existent. Maybe because I'm a big fan of conspiracy theories? Who knows. I think his work is a big manipulator of his choices.

Either way, its no longer BIG Brother watching.

I came across this at the Chive this morning, found it fitting...

firefox is way leaner and i have used it on everything forever.

Switched to Firefox yesterday, so far so good. Averaging 3+ GIG free RAM when using Firefox, with Chrome I had almost no memory free. I sense I may of had a bad Chrome install, but none the less the Firefox is running solid and no memory issues.

Another small, but useful app for IE/FF/GC is ABP. Ad Block Plus. So far, I found it works the best with GC when it comes to blocking ads. I see ZERO ads here. Same thing with videos on CNN, Youtube, FB etc etc.