Chrome, some bad news

bordalix — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:30:00 -0500

Update: Google's has changed the Terms of Service for Chrome.

Everyone is talking about the new Google's browser, coined Chrome. and the idea of launching a comic book to explain the advantages of Chrome a day before the launch is absolutely brilliant, and surely must be responsible for some of the hype generated along.

Since there is no Mac version available yet, I still haven't try it, but after reading some posts today, I'm glad I haven't:

Ryan Narraine, a security evangelist at Kaspersky Lab, found out that Chrome has inherited a serious security flaw from the old version of WebKit is based on: by combining a flaw in WebKit with a known Java bug, is possible to an attacker to trick Windows users into launching a Java file in one's computer. Try this demo to see the bug working (don't worry, it's only a proof of concept, the Java application that will be installed in your Windows computer will do no harm);
The other issue has to do with Chrome Terms of Service, which I believe will be changed in a near future, since point 11.1 states, and I quote, "By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services". In my opinion, this make sense when we are talking of services like YouTube and such, but in this case we are talking about a browser, so, by accepting this term, I would be allowing Google to own any content that I would access through the Chrome browser, which is pretty abusive, don't you think?

In summary, I will wait for the version 1.1 of the browser, and for a change in the Terms of Service before trying it.

The place João Bordalo calls home: Tag chrome

Chrome, some bad news