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Comment by HappyFunGuy | Hacker News Reader

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HappyFunGuy·

Am I correct in assuming that chrome is now a keylogger in regards to your url bar, and perhaps clipboard?

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Chrome sends things you type in the URL bar to Google to do prediction:

https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95656?hl=en

From that page it sounds like it is on by default.

Ive always assumed that each urn visited in chrome is reported back to google. The data is crazy valuable in a lot of ways.

What good browser is free of this horror?

Firefox?

Chromium?

Is it though?

It is, if you don't sign the browser into Google, disable all telemetry and prediction options, and use a non-Google search engine.

Firefox prompts you before even turning on search prediction, and it asks you about telemetry at first startup.

For people like me Firefox offer the best of both worlds:

* No google keylogger in the main url bar (but local autocomplete based on previous history, bookmarks etc)

* access to autocomplete in search field next to url bar (I think removing this was one of the simplifications in the original Chrome.)

Ctrl-L: go to url bar

Ctrl-K: go to search field

Qutebrowser.

qutebrowser¹ is fantastic. I just wish it had more ways to block trackers on webpages (other than just completely disabling JavaScript—even being able to whitelist JavaScript on certain hostnames would be a huge start).

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¹ — https://qutebrowser.org/

Technically anything that displays real-time search suggestions as you type is a keylogger, Firefox's included.

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