Google Chrome Spinoff 'Iron' For Privacy Fanatics

Sonnet_XVIII writes "According to DownloadSquad, A German company SRWare has developed a Google Chrome Spin off called Iron aimed at people who are concerned or have questions about Google's policies for collecting usage data."

Since when

[szo]

we started to call forks a "spin off"?

Re:Since when

[Bryansix]

Somebody confused their Television terms with their Technical terms.

Re:Since when

[danieltdp]

So, I wanna know when chrome's next season will begin. I heard it will be on the Linux channel

Re:

[MrNaz]

Since companies like Google started using open source and dumped all their absurd management terms into our lexicon.

Re:

[neostorm]

Well, I'm rather certain the spoon came first, right? So calling a fork a spin off isn't too far from the truth...

Re:

[SQLGuru]

I figured the single-tined fork (aka pointed stick) came first. Next was the knife (singled tined fork sharpened for cutting).

Layne

Not Forked Up

[fm6]

Not at all. If you RTFCB [google.com] you'll know that a major goal of Chrome is to get its technologies and ideas incorporated into other Open Source projects. Actually, that seems to be pretty much the idea, at least at this stage in the product's lifecycle. The product itself is too limited and glitchy for any other purpose. It's not like a lot of people are going to adopt it as their day-to-day browser, not with its minimal feature set and rendering issues.

I suspect the Chrome team is actually quite pleased to see t

Re:

[Ed Avis]

I'm curious, what are these 'glitches' and 'rendering issues' you talk of? I've used Chrome for a while and not noticed it misrendering anything (while I am affected by a rendering bug in Firefox). Nor any glitches or crashes.

Re:

[SQLGuru]

I've seen some pages that have issues under Chrome. They aren't on any exposed sites, so I can't send a link, but it's basically dynamic content that returns as XSLT formatted XML. Also, some pages with some unrecognized JavaScript. There were a couple of other pages that I've submitted back to Google, but I don't have the links handy, nor do I remember where they were.

Layne

Re:

[fm6]

I've seen some problems interpreting CSS correctly, both on internal company sites I've worked and on public sites like Netflix. The public site glitches might be from bad standards compliance, but I know mine weren't.

I've also had issues with text input boxes, where Chrome seems to have trouble keeping up with my typing.

Chrome has a bug reporting feature that includes the ability to send the developers a screen shot. Obviously they anticipated exactly this kind of problem.

Translation

[Stooshie]

I only speak a little German. So here is a bery bad translation via babelfish:

SRWare Iron: The browser of the future - based on the free source text " Chromium" - without doubts with the data protection and security Googles Web browser chrome inspires with an extremely fast structure of web page, a slim Design and imaginative functions. The data-security commissioners practice however also criticism, approximately because of the production of a clear user ID or the transmission from inputs google for the generation of search proposals. SRWare Iron is a genuine alternative. The browser basedly on the Chromium source text and offers so the same basic functions as chrome - however without the criticized points, which concern the data protection. We could provide from there a browser, with which you can use immediately the innovative features, without having to think about the keeping of your privacy. We would like to leave and place our users at our work sharings the browser free of charge to the download under the name " SRWare Iron" in the net. What makes Iron concretely differently than chrome? Read here.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how German though babelfish reads a lot like corporate marketing speak.

Add the word leverage somewhere and you could have fooled me.

Re:

[Patik]

I only speak a little German.

I know a little German. He's sitting right over there [criticalgamers.com].

Re:

[Stooshie]

That picture is just scary!

Removing Unique User ID

[gurps_npc]

That alone makes it far superior to Chrome.

Re:

[sH4RD]

Actually you can just use Chromium (the open source project for Chrome), as far as I can tell by using it for a few minutes there seem to be no unique user id's transmitted.

Re:

[GringoCroco]

Could you elaborate on that?

Did I understand that correctly: Chrome generates a UUID for each instalation or for each user on the system who runs Chrome?

Re:

[denominateur]

Judging by the comparative table on the SRWare page, it does indeed.

Better name

[bennybertow]

They should have called it "Tinfoil" instead...

Re:

[fizzding]

I dunno... "He's hiding something, clamp him in irons!" sounds about right to me.

Re:Better name

[MrNaz]

If you consider clearing cookies and basic privacy to be tinfoil type material, then may I have your email address? My ideas will intrigue you and I think you would like to subscribe to my newsletter.

Re:

[shutdown -p now]

Well, I consider that "tinfoil type material", too, and you can see my email address in my /. profile. A quick Google search on that should give you plenty more material, if you're interested.

Re:

[genghisjahn]

Wait til they get a load of my Transparent Aluminum Browser...it will alter the future!

Re:

[Drooling Iguana]

How do we know they didn't invent the thing?

Alert me when it runs on Mac and/or Linux.

[greenguy]

I promise not to make "dupe" comments.

Re:

[Al Dimond]

Most browser vulnerabilities aren't as simple as vulnerabilities in common network server or client code. I think it would be pretty damn hard to declare a browser secure by examining its code.

Language

[craigavonite]

The SRWare site and the installer are in German, but the browser itself (menu's, etc.) is in English, just for anyone thinking you're going to have to hunt out an EnUs addon or something

Re:

[forand]

But is the source in German?

Sorry had to do it.

What's Next?

[arizwebfoot]

Tin Hat?

Titanium?

--
Oh Well, Bad Karma and all . . .

It answers them?

[Anonymous Coward]

aimed at people who are concerned or have questions about Google's policies for collecting usage data.

So if I have questions, it answers them? Cool. I can never decode those EULAs.

Que?

[Rie Beam]

So, um, thanks for giving no actual information about this new revision, with the only real reference a German website with a download link. I guess this could be an incentive to learn Deutsch, but for the average /. reader, this is just an advertisement.

Anyway, here's a Babelfish translated link:

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.srware.net%2Fsoftware_srware_iron.php&lp=de_en&btnTrUrl=Translate [yahoo.com]

Translated FAQ

[Rie Beam]

What is Iron?

Iron is an Internet Browser, like Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Opera. It is based off of the free online source code of "Chromium".

I read that there are tools which attempt to make Chrome anonymous. Why shouldn't I simply use these?

There are worthwhile Freeware tools which offer similar functionality. However, these do not work from source and offer only limited control. Functions like the URL tracker cannot be switched off. This only offers variable security.

Iron is free -- how do you financ

Cherman

[Stanistani]

This is a wonderful translation, because now I have a new exclamation: Achtung! Spammern!

Re:

[SQLGuru]

So, is that what you call e-mails you get advertising U2's latest album?

Layne

I know nozzing!

[Stanistani]

I don't get much spam. When I do, I want something rough-sounding to bark.

Don't listen to U2, so yes, those would qualify.

*must buy pickelhaube helmet for web surfing*

Re:

[SQLGuru]

Since you don't listen to U2, you'll get some slack, but it was actually joke referring to one of their album titles.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achtung_Baby [wikipedia.org]

Layne

Re:

[Stanistani]

Zo, I literally knew nothing?
The ghost of Sargeant Schultz has once again correctly assessed the situation.

You don't trust Google...

[John Hasler]

But you are expected to trust some obscure German software company. Right.

The sad thing is, some of you will (but then, you already use Windows...)

Re:

[neuromanc3r]

But you are expected to trust some obscure German software company. Right.)

You don't have to. You the source code is available for download. (And you could obviously monitor your traffic see if the browser phones home)

Re:

[Ngarrang]

But you are expected to trust some obscure German software company. Right.

The sad thing is, some of you will (but then, you already use Windows...)

Hey, you! That's not nice. Some of us don't have a choice in our workplace OS.

You insensitive clod.

Re:

[Joe Tie.]

Yah, but this is Germany we're talking about. Nobody from there could be evil.

Their promises are as good as their source

[thisfred]

So they take the open source code, and redistribute it as an executable only. Of course completely legal under the BSD license, but wouldn't a privacy nut wonder why they give away the application for free but not the source code?

Re:Their promises are as good as their source

[denominateur]

The source code is available.

Re:

[argStyopa]

Um, isn't the source code also downloadable from their site?
http://www.srware.net/software_srware_iron_download.php [srware.net]

Look at the bottom - the source is available in 4 parts, it seems.

The differences

[nephridium]

According to the German webpage [srware.net] there are several significant improvements:

* unlike the current Chrome beta it uses the newest Webkit version of the current Chromium build

* it does not generate a unique ID of every client for use by Google

* no installation timestamp ill be generated for google

* no "suggest feature" that phones home to google (for help) what you type into the address bar

* will not phone home to google in case you mistyped a URL

* no phoning home for error reporting

* does not send RLZ tracking info to google, e.g. about when and where Chrome was downloaded

* NO frickin updater that installs itself as a startup app to run in the background

* does not load google homepage in background when the browser is loaded

Of course they provide the source code for your own tinkering as well, just don't hammer the poor fellas (more than they already get hammered right now ;)) as according to their page their current revenue only comes from the ads on the page and hopefully some donations by people showing their appreciation of their work.

Re:

[pkphilip]

I find it really funny that the only ads on their site comes in from Google! :)

Re:

[nephridium]

Just noticed that the source code [srware.net] is hosted on rapidshare - so hammer away and compile ;)

IRC log from Iron

[Anonymous Coward]

It's unfortunate that this guy decided to fork rather than submit bug fixes (or even file bugs). Several of the issues he identified are bugs, not intentional behavior in Chromium. It's supposed to be the case that anything that talks to a third-party server is controllable via preferences and options. He ran into a few that slipped through and decided to do a fork for self-publicity and $$ rather than trying to help the project. I see no problem with having forks in general, but this one seems unnecessary at this point.

Here's an excerpt from an IRC log on chromium-dev from a week ago when people asked him why he wasn't filing bugs or patches:

Iron: because a fork will bring a lot of publicity to my person and my homepage
Iron: that means: a lot of money too ;)
Iron: i dont take money for my fork
Iron: but i have adsense on my page ;)
Iron: a lot of visitor -> a lot of clicka > a lot of money ;)
Iron: we are here in germany
Iron: the press will love my fork
Iron: i talked to much journalists already
Iron: to remove all things in source talking to google ;)
Iron: nobody here trusts google
Iron: the german people say: google is very evil

Re:

[Nate Fox]

please mod parent up. a friend of mine works on chrome @ google and said the exact same thing: this guy merely wants to make money via adsense

Re:

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

> It's supposed to be the case that anything that talks to a third-party server is controllable via preferences and options. He ran into a few that slipped through

If every element of functionality that could relay data to a third-party is to be controllable then there is no reason on this Earth why this was not caught at design, code review, unit testing or assembly testing.

If the requirements state that ``all such functionality must be controllable'' then nothing ships until that is the case.

Ther

Re:IRC log from Iron

[bmcage]

link please! I can make up your statement in 1..2..3, why would I believe this?

Re:IRC log from Iron

[Lord Bitman]

Chrome's been out for nearly a month now and I don't see any new release any time "soon".
With such a poor release, I expected new versions to come out the same day yet here we are, weeks later, and no sign that the problems are even on Google's radar.

If I pushed a product to millions of users by linking to it from the front page of the world's most popular website, saying it was "uncrashable", and then it turned out within minutes of real-world uses that no, it's just as easy to crash as any other browser (I've yet to see a "sad tab"), or any of the other major problems, etc- I'd work towards fixing them ASAP. Where is the new release? Where is the new alpha?

Google fucked up. Forking might wake them up. All good forks get merged in the end, anyway.

Re:

[Lord Bitman]

An unadvertised development release which you need to download a separate program to "update" to is _not_ a release in any sane sense of the word. Everyone I personally know who has used Chrome has managed to (with normal browser usage) crash it, fully, within minutes of first installing it.

The point is simple: They said it was designed in such a way that it couldn't be fully crashed with normal usage, and yet it very easily can be. They released it to the whole world in this state. When reports started com

good good

[Vexorian]

So, questions, #1 "source code available" - what license? #2: Does it need a friking installer or can I just unzip it and run (aka it doesn't mess with the registry) If it is still FLOSS and doesn't touch the registry, it would be a great choice.

Re:

[sakdoctor]

Not really, unless you call clearing cookies between browsing sessions fanatical.

Re:Fanatical

[MrNaz]

I'm increasingly starting to think that Slashdot editors are being underhandedly paid by Google to subtly ridicule anti-Google articles or sentiments. The wording of this summary makes it pretty blatantly obvious that the editor wants to make people who are suspicious of Google appear "fanatical", implying all the baggage that that word carries with it these days.

How is it fanatical to not want to send your data to a private corporation? Would it be fanatical if that corporation was Microsoft, Sony or Universal Studios?

I clear my cookies regularly. What Slashdot calls fanatical I call routine. So I guess that makes me a fanatic.

Re:Fanatical

[redJag]

Fanatical people don't think of themselves as fanatical. Only the people that label them fanatical do..

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is determining what a reasonable person would call a fanatic. We all think we're reasonable, when honestly I find most of us (myself included) to be essentially unreasonable most of the time.

Calling someone fanatical these days is less about about extremism (for good or ill), and more about casting disrespect.

Re:Fanatical

[Sancho]

A reasonable person, or the average person? I don't think that the average person is reasonable.

The average person cares about having the newest car, the newest TV, a house they can't afford, etc. They want to keep up with the Joneses. They measure their own worth as relative to other people's possessions. Their own happiness depends upon being "better" than other people. That's not reasonable. That's why the American economy is in the mess that it's in. We're a society where the goal is to attain money any way you can. If you don't, you're a failure.

Reasonable? My ass.

Re:Fanatical

[RabidMonkey]

I won't pick points, but I don't think it's fair to roll 50% of the population into one bucket and assume things about them, right or wrong.

I'm sure you've never, in your entire life, done anything unreasonable, like wanting something because it looked cool, or sounded cool, or because you wanted to be the first kid on the block to have it, or because all of your friends had one.

All general statements are false.

Re:

[Zashi]

you're being ironical, yes?

All general statements are false.

Kinda reminds me of a certain quote [xkcdb.com]

Re:

[BenoitRen]

All general statements are false.

Then yours is as well. PARADOX.

Re:Fanatical

[Fred_A]

Only fanatics label other fanatics as being fanatical !

Re:

[Enderandrew]

Only fanatics debate if other fanatics are fanatical to qualify as fanatics.

And for the record, all the rest of you are fanatics. I'll well adjusted.

Re:

[smellotron]

fantastic!

Re:

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Oh yeah? Well, only the Sith deal in absolutes!

Not so funny now, is it?

Re:

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

I wonder if George Lucas, or whoever wrote that line, realised how funny it was.

Re:

[h4rm0ny]

Fanatical people don't think of themselves as fanatical. Only the people that label them fanatical do..

And people that considered clearing your browser cookies a sign of fanatacism have seriously low standards of effort or caring. It takes seconds. Good grief - what would they think of someone brushing their teeth each night? "He spends minutes everyday doing this activity? FANATIC!"

Re:

[kaosfury]

I don't see where "privacy fanatics" == suspicious of Google. I fall into the former, and I am suspicious of most online companies.

Re:Fanatical

[Bryansix]

Uhm, because there is a box you have to check to OPT-IN to the program to send them that information.

Re:

[Gewalt]

You clear your cookies???!?!?!? I could never do that. I like all my cookies very much, and I get very sad when I lose them. All 12 of them. That said, until chrome/iron/whatever gets CS Lite, NoScript and AdBlock+ extensions, they will continue to be useless when compared to Firefox.

You clear your cookies???!?!?!?

[RudeIota]

Delete cookies?! [typepad.com]

Re:

[Enderandrew]

I see more anti-Google articles on Slashdot these days, that I seriously doubt on the whole the editors have a secret agenda to make Goolge look good. Individuals have individual opinions. I wouldn't be shocked to learn one editor is extremely pro-Google, and another anti-Google, but I haven't seen a consistent trend, though you might see a consistent trend if you were only looking for the good or bad.

Re:

[h4rm0ny]

I think the main agenda /. editors have is to stir up lots of angry arguments to drive the post count up. I'm not exactly what the interest is, though a high post count might tie into their advertising earnings either directly through more usage meaning more click-throughs, or bu making themselves look more appealing to advertisers. Or maybe editors are simply under pressure to generate more activity in some way. But I see more and more articles that are obvious trolls and flamebait, right down to an unsub

Re:

[centuren]

What surprises me most about the pro or anti Google opinions, is how quiet the open source supporters have been. This year we have a company developing both an open source web browser and an open source operating system for mobile computing, and people seem to be up in arms about it.

Considering NONE of us are required to use the official versions of either if we don't like something about it, what's there to complain about?

Re:

[Goaway]

Yeah, it couldn't possibly be because you seem ridiculous to most people. It's gotta be a conspiracy!

You're not really doing your cause any favours with that post, you know.

Re:

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I clear my cookies regularly

Why not just set them to clear when you close your browser?

Editors?

[forand]

So my reading of the original post was that the only thing the editors of Slashdot had added to the submission of Sonnet_XVIII was "Sonnet_XVIII writes." How do you think the editors are responsible for the wording of a submission? Do you assert that a "better" submission was made? It appears to me that you should be annoyed with Sonnet_XVIII not the slashdot editors.

Re:

[Sonnet_XVIII]

I wrote According to Download Squad. Downloadsquad used the term, I did not mean anything by it. Besides it was my first ever post on slashdot, no offence against anyone. Didn't know the term Fanatical was going to make all the fuss, was hoping to get more comments on the "fork" itself, I mean I thought the news was for Geeks, not philosophers and politicians!! :)

Re:

[Danny Rathjens]

My google privacy concerns cause me to simply continue to use firefox - and delete those permanent-ish unique identifier cookies periodically if I remember. :) So a fork for privacy - motivated by making the guy some ad revenue no less - leaves me quite apathetic. :)

Re:

[centuren]

Well said! After the big discussions on Slashdot about Chrome and Google in general raising concerns on privacy, nitpicking about the term fanatic seems silly.

This is a reminder that Chrome is open source; open enough that a full fork retains all (desired) functionality. That seems to be exactly what "giving back to the open source community" seems to entail.

Cheers to Google. Whether you like Chrome or not, Google thinks it's innovative, and the community can adapt it or take from it as needed.

Re:

[Danny Rathjens]

I had a submission posted last week in which the editor modified the part inside the quotes after "Danny Rathjen's writes". I'm not complaining - I was actually impressed at the effort and thought the change was reasonable. I'm just pointing out that the words between the quote marks are not sacrosanct to the /. editors.

Since I know someone will ask the details, I wrote something like, "and the jabber.org website is down" (with the url hyperlinked to the downed site) and the line was changed to, "Jabbe

Re:

[PietjeJantje]

What worries me more is companies like Apple and Google gaming sites like Slashdot, reddit, etc. I seriously doubt it is only the fan boys who counter and mod down even the best of arguments, just because they dares to criticize their infallible darlings. The worst part is that they all call themselves liberal in the good sense of the word. I'm not sure who are more dangerous. Both are entities that dilute our privacy and rights step by step, because, you have nothing to hide, right?

Re:

[MikeFM]

It's not fanatical. It's just crazy and paranoid. I bet you shred all your credit card offers to.

My life is to busy for all that paranoia - to much time spent trying to fix my credit as it keeps getting hijacked somehow.

Re:

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Bullshit. In the modern surveillance society, you'd have to be stupid to not take every precaution you reasonably can.

Re:Fanatical

[British]

You're right. Here's an idea for safe browsing. Call it the "one time coffee shop" method.

1. Go to coffee shop & browse away
2. after surfing, torch the coffee house.

You can only do this once per coffee shop. Sadly, Starbucks doesn't supply computers since there's an abundance of said shops.

Re:

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

That would be a wonderful idea if I wanted to get busted for arson and not "sedition".

Re:

[PietjeJantje]

Hey, it's the joke variant of the ad hominem argument. Good job laughing it all away without providing actual arguments (and no, "I got nothing to hide" is not one of them). If it weren't for people like you, how would they be able to dilute our privacy and rights? And your work is for a good cause. They must be defeated, these fanatics, in the finest of contemporary American anti-intellectual of styles. Knowledge, path! Intelligent debate, pah! Sir, you must be proud, I congratulate you for your accomplish

Re:

[syousef]

You're right. Here's an idea for safe browsing. Call it the "one time coffee shop" method.

1. Go to coffee shop & browse away
2. after surfing, torch the coffee house.

You can only do this once per coffee shop. Sadly, Starbucks doesn't supply computers since there's an abundance of said shops.

I solved that problem by taking my laptop to each of the coffee shops.

Re:

[Enderandrew]

Because we all have so much to hide and fear?

I've been posting using the same name since the pre-internet BBS days. A quick Google will show you on the front page what my real name is, and what city I live in. A halfway thorough search will show you considerably more.

Frankly, I ain't got nothing to hide (besides my live chicken fetishes, but no one knows about that except he who controls my browsing data...oh shit)

Re:

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Because we all have so much to hide and fear?

Because we all have so many good reasons to believe that those in authority respect our rights and have our best interests in mind. If you trust the authorities, you are part of the problem.

Re:

[craigavonite]

Since when was it "fanatical" to not want your activities tracked? You wouldn't call it fanatical if I didn't want you to follow me around the streets all day, so nor do I want Google to follow me around the net all day.

Re:

[Bryansix]

So don't check the box.

Re:Fanatical? use Opera

[AliasMarlowe]

I configured Opera to clear all cookies at the end of every session. Occasionally, I also clear them during a session.

In Epiphany, I regularly clean out all cookies manually. I do this before and after visiting any e-commerce or financial site, even if I don't conduct any transactions.

It's no more fanatical than using a condom.

Re:

[ckaminski]

um, yes, it is. You'll NEVER get the HIV or Herpes from some online website. You can reinstall your computer, there's no do-over button on your life.

Re:

[Suhas]

>You can reinstall your computer
reinstall your computer? Not to sound overly pedantic but geez, I would not expect that kind of language on slashdot, less so from a poster with a low uid.

Re:

[ckaminski]

So pedantic. You know exactly what I meant... :-)

Re:

[MrZaius]

Identity theft can, in the worst case scenarios, have costs that are comparable to the initial outlay in childbirth and treatment for the diseases mentioned in the parent post (given insurance).

Re:

[ckaminski]

All of which are fixable. Even the worst case of identity theft ruining your life and leaving you broke still leaves you alive (unless part of the identity theft is killing you for your eyes or something).

There are things out there far worse. A little perspective. Some judicious caution applied in all cases will keep you healthy, happy, comfortable and safe your entire life.

Alright, I'm gonna shut up now... I think I've trolled enough. lol.

Re:

[Burz]

Your cache and browsing history can be detected by websites too. Firefox has extensions to deal with these.

In Opera, the easiest way to deal with cache privacy and "web bugs" may be to switch its image-loading mode to only load images from the originating website (the site in the address bar).

I don't know exactly what to do about keeping the browsing history private in Opera; turn off javascript I suppose.