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Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

Canonical is not the first to do this. And nobody minded.

In Chrome, every time you start to type a URL, it tries to autocomplete. One source of autocompletions is that it contacts Google, which sends back suggestions. Therefore by default Google knows every search you do in Chrome, even if you didn't want to go to Google. (They turn this off for incognito mode.)

I don't know how long this has been the case for Chrome, but I use this feature a lot more than I'd use Canonical's search.

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Yes, but it's somewhat less of a privacy violation, because you usually expect to send out the URL you type over the internet. That's different from trying a local search on your machine and finding it ended up on the internet.

No, you only expect it to send the URL when you hit "enter". For instant results, however, it must send each character typed to Google. Also, when I type a non-google URL into my address bar, I don't expect Google to be notified. As it is, they can track all your internet travels from Chrome, and I don't like it. Hence why I use Firefox and Duck Duck Go.

You're absolutely right, that's why I wrote "somewhat less".

It's happened to me more than once that I accidentally pasted a password into the Chrome bar so that I had to go and change it, and so like you, I much prefer having an address bar without function creep. All I meant is that the potential for much worse privacy leaks is much much greater with the Unity bar than with the Chrome bar.

Lots of people minded. There was a huge shitstorm when Google introduced it on the search front page, there was one when Firefox enabled it in the search box and there was one when Chrome was released without a separation between the location and search box.

At least the search suggestions are genuinely useful, in stark contrast to the Amazon ads.

Google Chrome has always had this feature, yet it didn't stop it from gaining 20% market share. Neither does it stop the "why don't Firefox merge the search and location bar?" comment seen in almost every comment thread whenever Firefox's UI is discussed. I don't think that anyone is under the illusion that the average user care about this behavior in any way.

Sure. But whether or not the average user cares isn't relevant to the question if a vocal minority does. I think the amount of resistance the Ubuntu change gets is broadly comparable to the changes I mention. It's probably roughly the same people complaining.

I recall complaining vocally about that and seeing others do so. It's still the only reason I don't use Chrome.

Well, you _can_ disable it, so no need to cut off your nose to spite your face.

Unless you're boycotting Chrome on the principle of this feature.

I'm kind of boycotting on pricinple. I recognize that Google has an on-going interest in that kind of practice, and I don't want to deal with it in the future. If a key benefit of open-source is more-eyes-on-the-code, there's another browser that has more-eyes-with-the-same-priorities-as-me on the code.

I also enabled instant search in Chrome. Whenever I want privacy, I just Ctrl-N.

You mean Ctrl-Shift-N (for a new Incognito window). Ctrl-N just opens a regular window.

Right :-) Shortcut is wired to my fingers and I look for the guy with the glasses and the hat anyway :-)

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