Google Chrome 25 Will Serve Searches Over SSL From the Omnibox For All Users 101
An anonymous reader writes "Google on Friday announced yet another security improvement for Chrome 25. In addition to killing silent extension installation, the omnibox in Google's browser will send all searches over a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connection. Chrome already does this for users who are signed in to Google: when they search from the address bar, their queries are sent over HTTPS. As of Chrome 25, however, the same will happen for users who aren't signed in to Google."
Great (Score:3, Funny)
good to know that Google values our privacy so much.
Not like that other internet site that sells everything about you except your underwear to the highest bidder, and forces you to use your real name for everything.
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i was being sarcastic.
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We've got to tell Google to keep it's hands off of our searches!
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Not like that other internet site that sells everything about you except your underwear to the highest bidder, and forces you to use your real name for everything.
I think you mean to imply that Google do in fact sell information about you and I don't think there's any evidence of that. They gather as much info as they can, they use it and aim to profit from it by advertising to you - and that may be bad enough - but as far as I can tell they don't sell it to anyone else, rather they hoard it and preserve it as their own goldmine. Am I wrong?
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Yes. It's good to know that Google is insuring they are the only party that will be eavesdropping on your searches. They'll protect you, and as a value-add prevent their competitors from eavesdropping.
Ummm...
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How does firefox handle searches? (Score:3)
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Current versions(from 14 forward I think, but no definitely not older than that without an addon/changed search) uses HTTPS for the default Google search bar. Don't know about searches from the Awesome bar.
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I always remove the search bar, and have all address bar suggestions turned off, but TFS has me worried. It mentions searching from the address bar.
When I type or paste a URL into the address bar, it doesn't get sent to a search engine, does it?
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I always remove the search bar, and have all address bar suggestions turned off, but TFS has me worried. It mentions searching from the address bar.
When I type or paste a URL into the address bar, it doesn't get sent to a search engine, does it?
It can, depending on your browser and typing skills. Some browsers, if they can't find a server matching what you typed, they will send the string to your "default" search engine, or in one case Google no matter what.
So when you by mistake enter http;//www.redtube.com/, chances are good that Google will log that you tried to access that site.
Wonderful, isn't it?
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However you want it to. Just click the drop down arrow at the left of the search box, and it will give you a selection of engines. If you want Google SSL, it's there. If you want Duck Duck Go, it's there. Mine even has Wikipedia, Twitter, and Amazon entries.
I'm not sure how comprehensive the default install is, this particular selection of search engines might have been configured by the person who packages it for Debian.
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Good call. Added Google SSL to the search bar. I use https://encrypted.google.com/ [google.com] as my normal Google page. Main reason for that is i prefer the results opened a new tab rather then showing in whatever page i happen to search from, or having open a new tab.
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I'm not sure how comprehensive the default install is, this particular selection of search engines might have been configured by the person who packages it for Debian.
It probably comes with a few out of the box, but Chrome also automatically adds other sites to the list as you use them. I'm not sure how it works, exactly, but I think Chrome uses some sort of heuristic to recognize sites that provide a search function of some sort, and adds them to the list. My browser has several dozen different "search" sites in the list, including many that I didn't even realize had a search function.
Another non-obvious and really useful feature is that you can edit the "keyword" for
Re:How does firefox handle searches? (Score:5, Insightful)
Use the HTTPS-anywhere addon, from the EFF (https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere). It has rules that cause Firefox to automatically use HTTPS for dozens of web sites, including Google Search and APIs.
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HTTPS Everywhere breaks a LOT of sites. Every time I find a site broken by that addon, I need to disable it there so it works again.
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Anyw
Don't use HTTPS-Everywhere (Score:1)
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I think that one using Google would worrying about security of their searches a little funny and ironic. The Google way: Give us access to all your Email, all your contacts, your location, your calls, the apps you install, all your searches, all your comments on Google+, your research on Google Maps, your shopping, all your purchases with Google Wallet, tracking you with Adsense from millions of sites, storing your passwords in Google's browsers, recording your network passwords in your Android accounts,
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One should never have all their eggs in one basket.
WTF does that mean? i should spread my personal information across a variety of website. yeah, good advice.
do i trust google more than whatever nefarious entity runs startpage.com? i sure do. i know google will do everything possible not to expose my persona info, because if they did, their business would go down the toilet. how many people would keep using gmail, search, etc if they knew google was leaking personal data to 3rd party companies? they have a financial interest in protecting my data. sure that
Re:How does firefox handle searches? (Score:4, Insightful)
I will explain what it means...
You might trust Google, but do you really want to trust them with EVERYTHING? If you separate off your searching to something else, it greatly enhances your privacy, especially since you are not "signed in" to something like Startpage. I am not saying that Startpage is some great, perfect system (pick something else, then). All I am saying is that from a privacy standpoint, it makes sense to not to give ALL your data to one entity. Hence- not putting all your eggs in one basket.
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You forgot a big one (although your list is great and somewhat frightening). Use their Google DNS server and they have access to every site you browse to in the course of the day. Another one: give them access to your calendar and to-do list and they can do even more fine-grained profiling of what ads to show you that may be more closely aligned with your shopping habits.
It scares me, and I own a Google Nexus 7 tablet, which I love. I'm trying to mitigate the risk by surfing the web with Opera, searching
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+1 on everything you just said.
Older generation = Know what privacy means but have no clue about the dangers of computers and how they relate to privacy.
Around my generation = Most know about privacy, and even how computers can erode it, but most don't quite care enough to do anything about it because it is inconvenient or just difficult.
Younger generation = Have no concept at all as to what privacy is. Think anyone concerned about privacy is totally paranoid and til foil hat.
GoogleSharing add-on (Score:2)
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Until recently (October 2012?) their google searches were sent in plaintext. Now they're sent via SSL.
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SSL by default for Google since Firefox 14, back in July 2012. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=633773 [mozilla.org]
For other search engines it depends. For example, Wikipedia has asked that the search through their search plugin keep happening over HTTP for now (see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=758857 [mozilla.org] ).
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It's been a while but I used an addon called Add to Search Bar and I think I just right click on the search field while I was at https://encrypted.google.com/ [google.com] then it gave an option for me to add this field to the search engines. It doesn't provide real time suggestions but I don't care about that.
64-bit (Score:1)
But is the browser 64-bit yet? Do I still have to have 32-bit Java installed? Or do I still have to prefer to use IE when remoting into work (which requires Java)?
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What are you on about?
$ file /opt/google/chrome/chrome
/opt/google/chrome/chrome: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.15, BuildID[sha1]=690874ce18d973267436f04ec75877f26a6af0f1, stripped
Chrome and Firefox have both been 64 bit for years
Cheers
Jon
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On linux, sure.
On Windows, Chrome and Firefox are 32bit.
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Chrome and Firefox have both been 64 bit for years
chrome is only 64 bit on linux. mac and windows are 32 bit only.
Version 25??? (Score:3)
All those background updates and I never once stopped to think about what rev we were on.
Huh.
Well played, google. Well played.
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Yeah, because there is something just so classy and sexy about a browser that doesn't tell you what is going or and is resistant to customizations. Even sexier when it is tied to Google, is closed source, and does who-knows-what with all that stuff you do/see/search (Chrome is secret, like IE... at least Chromium you can see inside the code, like Firefox).
Well played, indeed.
People using Chrome and who are also worried about a third party seeing their search queries: priceless.
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Of course not- nobody does that (or do they?) But the point is that there is MUCH smaller chance that anyone outside of Google knows what is going on inside their Chrome code when compared to an open-source browser.
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That sounds like "security through ignorance":
"I don't know who is watching me, ergo, I am safer."
Hmmm....
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You do realize that Chrome and the javascript and rendering engines it's built on are open source, right? You also realize that Chrome is just a release version of Chromium (with a few extra goodies thrown in like flash player and PDF viewer), right? You also realize you can use a tool like Fiddler to see exactly what Chrome sends over the wire if you don't trust what it reports in it's own dev tools, right? The only part of Chrome that could be considered sketchy is RLZ, but they made that open source s
Re:Version 25??? (Score:4, Informative)
1) Chrome is not open source. It is based on Chromium, which is open sourced, but the build Google takes is not identical code. They can put anything in it they wish.
2) Fiddler is a proxy, as such, the browser will know it is not directly connected.
3) Even if one could capture all data as it would normally travel, it doesn't mean one would be able to understand everything it sends. If a blob of data goes to Google at some point, especially when already connecting to their servers with every other page doing adsense, exactly how are we mere, non-Google mortals going to know it is all above-the-board?
4) Again, RLZ might be open source, but their COMPILE of CHROME that contains it is not... so what you see might not be what you get. Open-source projects, like Firefox, Linux, OpenOffice, etc, are examined and compiled by third parties and not primarily distributed as a owner/maker binary. Even Chromium seems to be obfuscated in ways that make it unsuitable for others to compile and distribute: http://ostatic.com/blog/making-projects-easier-to-package-why-chromium-isnt-in-fedora [ostatic.com]
I am not saying Chrome *is* spyware. But I am saying it has the ability to be, and it might be, and we can't really know. It is being released by a company who has a lot to gain by gathering as much info as possible, and a lot of practice doing so (and a huge, unquestioning following).
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1) Fair point.
2) Fine, don't trust Fiddler either. Use Wireshark or similar tools. There's no rocket science involved here.
3) Blob? Are you referring to some encrypted transmission? It's pretty damn easy to detect adsense transmissions. There could just as easily be secret transmissions in any Firefox build as well since whoever is doing the build can inject anything they want in there. At the end of the day, you're still putting trust in some third-party to not steal your keystrokes or do whatever
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The paper is very interesting, but if you don't want to read the whole thing, just read the section under the heading "Moral".
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The address bar is a search bar. Type in what you're searching for in place of the URL and it will search for you, or are you referring to something else?
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Add keywords, just like in Firefox?
When I type "wiki foo" it searches for "foo" at Wikipedia.
When I type "def foo" it searches for the definition of "foo"
When I type "imdb foo" it searches on IMDB for the movie or show "foo"
Etc...
I find this easier than using a dedicated search box, since I never have to use the mouse. Ctrl-L, and start typing, or Ctrl-N for a new tab with the "omnibar" selected. I probably have 25 or keyword searches set up, though I only use around 5 of them commonly. And with Chrome m
Google values privacy (Score:5, Funny)
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Good point. After all, they could make all this stuff that they give away for free and still make a profit without it, right?
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I know you're just trying to get a cheap laugh from the paranoid crowd, but this is actually one of the best arguments about why Google will never sell your data to anyone. Analyzing it to make their own services better is the most valuable use for it, so they'd be stupid to let it out of the company.
Effect on Mass Surveillance? (Score:1)
One of the main benefits of increasing the amount of encrypted traffic on the Internet is that it makes illegal mass surveillance more difficult. The EFF did this with HTTPS Everywhere. [eff.org]
Do surveillance agencies have some way of accessing all of this data in spite of it being encrypted in transport?
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Do surveillance agencies have some way of accessing all of this data in spite of it being encrypted in transport?
As the other commenter said, they can probably get it from Google et al.
As for "in flight": It is quite likely (by my own paranoid estimation only) that governments have access to a SSL root CA. OSes and browsers come installed with hundreds of Root CA certificates, and the gov't would only have to get a private key from one of them to be able to decrypt your SSL tracffic. For example, the makers of Stuxnet got themselves a root CA cert for installing applications (it may not have been strictly needed for t
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gov't would only have to get a private key from one [CA] to be able to decrypt your SSL tracffic.
Correction: if you are one of the diligent people who actually clicks on the SSL information dialogue and checks the certificate chain, then they would have to get the right CA in order to fool you.
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I think it's safe to assume that the surveillance agencies of any given government have the private keys of every CA located within their borders. And probably those of their allies, and as many others as they've been able to obtain.
Good news... (Score:2)
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I like to use Proxy Switchy for that.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/proxy-switchy/caehdcpeofiiigpdhbabniblemipncjj [google.com]
SSL for searches is a good idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Using SSL for searches will prevent tragedies such as this [boingboing.net].
(Not the wife and mistress teaming up which can sometimes lead to tragedy. I'm talking about the IT department discovering searches for making poison.)
--
Joe
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Actually, Chrome has been doing this for a while for users who log into Chrome with their google account. This is just a new thing they are adding for users who are not logged in.
Re:DuckDuckGo (Score:5, Informative)
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but the search results were so often so much worse than of Google's that it eventually just got too clunky.
That's the awkward thing about principles, sometimes they require a little inconvenience. That's why few people exhibit any principles these days, unless the law demands it.
The more people that stick with DDG the better it will become.
What principle was this, again?
Works for Chromium? (Score:2)
Will this work in the latest Chromium (for Win and for Lin)? Or is it just for the closed-source version of Chrome?
I don't install Google Products (Score:2)
I use google web stuff, but I don't uninstall their native products. I can't imagine why GTalk client or Chrome require multiple services to be installed on Windows. I don't see any other Browsers or Chat clients installing Windows services.
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Meant to write "but I don't install their native products".
This is not a troll (Score:1)
I'll ask you Googlers out there a simple question:
Why is Chrome not fully open source? What are you trying to hide?
BTW, this is not a troll but a reason why I keep using Firefox.
Not for my work (Score:2)
Where I work, https is, by default, suppressed as they can't do a deep packet analysis of the data exchange. A specific site can be whitelisted for https for work related reasons after vetting.
Great (Score:2)
I'm not concerned with other actors, I'm concerned with google. When will they release a setting that allows us to prevent them from gathering information on us? Shouldn't be too hard to dish out results without logging them. But yeah, I'd say google is the biggest privacy threat, not "other actors"
They're forcing Google Analytics on webmasters (Score:2)
I think this is a double edged sword, as everything Internet-related seems to be these days. Yes, they protect the users' search. Sort of. Really, they're just denying access to that data to everyone except themselves, since Google knows damned well what you're searching for. Yes, the user is protected, but they've actually just heightened the walled garden a bit.
I also wonder if this isn't a push to get web-masters to use their stupid Google Analytics service. I use www.statcounter.com on my websites,
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