Google Accidentally Transmits Self-Destruct Code to Army of Chrome Browsers

Google Accidentally Transmits Self-Destruct Code to Army of Chrome Browsers

www.wired.com

Google’s Gmail service went down for about 20 minutes on Monday. That was annoying, but not exactly unprecedented. These sorts of outages happen all the time. What was strange is that the Gmail outage coincided with widespread reports that Google’s Chrome browser was also crashing.

Late Monday, Google engineer Tim Steele confirmed what developers had been suspecting. The crashes were affecting Chrome users who were using another Google web service known as Sync....

(visit the link for the full news article)

I've heard so many members noticing peculiar behavior while browsing, as well as "other" unseemly browser conduct cropping up.

It is important to remember that line from a classic Start Trek film by the legendary engineer Mr. Scott... "The more you tap into the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."

It appears that this was all related to making data available to their own servers.... think people.... it's what we do here on ATS.

Sync is essentially Google’s answer to Apple’s iCloud. It’s a software service built by Google to unshackle web surfers from their own desktops. It works in the background, shuttling information between the Chrome browser and Google’s servers, so that people users who log into Google can get at their bookmarks, extensions, and apps — no matter what computer they’re using to surf the web.

But on Monday, Steele wrote in a developer discussion forum, a problem with Google’s Sync servers kicked off an error on the browser, which made Chrome abruptly shut down on the desktop.

“It’s due to a backend service that sync servers depend on becoming overwhelmed, and sync servers responding to that by telling all clients to throttle all data types,” Steele said. That “throttling” messed up things in the browser, causing it to crash.

In traditional PR fashion, the spokesperson provides assurances that this is (or will be) a "short-lived" problem....

Be alert folks.... we need more "lerts."

www.wired.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I've never used the Sync 'service'... much the same as their 'desktop search', it slows mah rig too much with untoward numbers of background processes and the like.

[ETA]

I even 'disable' the 'continue running background services when Chrome is closed' feature as well

Originally posted by 12m8keall2c
I've never used the Sync 'service'... much the same as their 'desktop search', it slows mah rig too much with untoward numbers of background processes and the like.

[ETA]

I even 'disable' the 'continue running background services when Chrome is closed' feature as well

edit on 12/11/2012 by 12m8keall2c because: (no reason given)

Well said. Chrome is a good browser as long as you go through and optimize it, and leave sync alone.

reply to post by 12m8keall2c


I wish I had been so smart.

I found their browser to be very nice... until as time passed... it became bigger and more intrusive...

Let's hope such services as Sync and others which have access to all your browsing data become subject to some kind of "leash" or "play pen" where their innovative on-the-fly data siphoning won't become an issue I, a humble user, have to deal with.

Personally I opt to revert to my old favorite browser... as this one seems 'not ready for prime time' - suddenly.

Originally posted by Klassified
... and leave sync alone.

agreed.

I'm just not that comfortable with the whole 'cloud computing' dealio [yet]. too many bugs. too much exploitable security issues and the like

"The more you tap into the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."

I keep my rig lean and mean, nothing running but the basics, reduced background services to minimums.

I saw the writing on the wall when the icloud concept was birthing itself, same for sync.

Putting your private material on an internet remote location in order to share it with other devices can mean inevitably one thing...

It's just a matter of time, google's already been caught with their hand in the cookie jar a few times, I don't doubt for a second that there are more 'curious minds' snooping about in the clouds other than google.

ps thanks for the tips, I'll have to see if there is a thread out there with more information on how to better tune up Chrome.

Originally posted by Maxmars
reply to post by 12m8keall2c

 

I found their browser to be very nice... until as time passed... it became bigger and more intrusive...

Oh. It is ... and also has become so, to an extent, but i'll continue using it as it's by far the best, still .... 's long as you noose the sumbutch down and choke the living data[sic]lights out of it -

reply to post by Maxmars


Not a big Chrome fan. I like thin and functional, and prefer Opera. Next is Firefox, but way too many update pushes.

I tried the sync options with FF for a while, it's nice to spy on teenage children's online activities, but too bandwidth greedy.

reply to post by 12m8keall2c


I'm always keeping an eye on that. If the CPU shows a steady traffic of 80% or upwards, I start closing things down. It's a 10 year old piece of crap, it doesn't handle things like I'm used to. And I keep on top of it.

Chrome doesn't give me a whole lot of "problems". I noticed it kept shutting down yesterday, but I didn't think much of it. I thought it was one of the tabs and switched over to Firefox for a while. Firefox is my preferred browser anyway.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


I've never really had any 'problems' with chrome ... other than the occasional AVG 'report' that it's using excessive amounts of memory, that it should be closed and reopened, but I typically ignore those due to having 14-16 tabs open at any given moment. heck, with that many it should be using a fair bit of memory..

reply to post by Maxmars


I use chrome, But im entirely against the Synchronisation system, Its basically asking for your personnel data to be abused, Google's services a all networked together for a reason, to make sure they have every possible way to produce marketing around your personnel google experience.

I like to call it gordan (Google Garden)

There is a reason all those ads are flashing in your face.

I dont understand what the title has to do with the article. If google passed an instruction to its various tendrils to prevent large volumes of data from passing through its networked services, that is not a self destruct. Thats not even close to a self destruct. Google sending its browsers an instruction to cease all normal function, and a further instruction to disassemble the elements of its own program until no trace remains, would be a self destruct.

This is just a plain old balls up. Its no real big deal, the program affected is still viable, its just been told to behave like a prize jerk for the moment. Honestly, talk about sensationalism!

reply to post by TrueBrit


I would think that would be matter of perspective.

Chrome prides itself on “sandboxing” itself, so that a problem with a single webpage can only crash a tab in the browser, and not bring down the entire program. But that’s just what happened with Monday’s bug. It clobbered the entire browser.

“That’s definitely a big and unusual problem because if the browser shuts down, that’s a failure of the whole model of Chromium itself,’ says Kevin Quennesson, CTO of online photo service Everpix.

...

It’s also something that cloud service providers are going to have to worry about more and more, as services such as Apple’s iCloud and Windows Live get more closely intertwined with our phones and PCs.

“As you centralize things like authentication and identity to one provider, then when that one provider has a hiccup the impact can be far-reaching,” says Ulevicth. “Imagine a scenario where you can’t even open your Android phone or you can’t get phone calls on Google Voice. it’s not just your browser.”

As for the sensationalist title... I'm afraid you need to take that up with WIRED Enterprises.

reply to post by Maxmars



All I am saying is that there is a difference between a crashed system and a destroyed one. You cannot recover something which has been destroyed, but you can recover something which has crashed. Wether we are talking server or individual PC, or indeed browser, this remains the same. Its like saying "I destroyed my bass guitar last night." When what I mean is, "I played my bass so hard I broke a string, and must replace it soon to prevent the neck from warping.".

And I wasnt trying to lambast YOU about the title Maxmars, I was merely commenting on the sillyness of Wired in the way they headlined this subject.

There is a thing called Google Update. This is something that keeps Google software updated. I became wary of installing software from Google after I removed Google Earth. Because after I removed Google Earth, the update service decided just to hang around. I think this is highly suspicious of an application to have such behavior. After some months, I removed the piece of software manually. According to Google, you're supposed to wait and the software will just remove itself. But, I do know how Google make its money. They spy on people. So, giving a piece of software access to my system with no good reason was not an option. I do use Youtube, but I found another search-engine called DuckDuckGo that I use instead. They don't spy on people.

Thanks for starting this thread @Maxmars. I'm glad to see tech issues on the front page of ATS; not to mention this explains yesterday's outage.

For those interested. Chrome is considered the best out there, bugs & all, though MS is really trying to get folks over to IE 10, which reminds me I should take a peak to see what MS is up to. Source on browser info: lmgtfy.com...

As for optimizing Chrome here are few helpful settings in your start-up programs menu (of course, some folks won't have all of these, and by default Google makes all its programs start-up when your computer does to "optimized" the Google experience... which translates to slowing your machine down):

Find & disable on start up:

1. Chromium (an OS project that aims to build an operating system)
2. Google update
3. 13BFXXX38E255XX0605943FEB2XXD8431346CAXX._service_run (Chrome auto start, your number string will look different but you get the idea)
4. GoogleDriveSync (Google docs, ect...)
5. MusicManager (Google music...)

Basically if you see Google anywhere in your start up programs menu, turn it off. Same goes with Apple. Both drain machine resources and are not needed for normal use until you touch them.

If you're feeling randy and want to start shutting down all sorts of other programs be **careful**. You can break your machine for a bit if you shut off the wrong program.

To check what's safe to turn off in your start up menu, go here: www.file.net... or conversely just type the program name into Google search; enough websites will return info on the program to determine it its safe to shut off.

Cheers.

ETA: For those less tech savvy, to shut off Sync (the problem child program) go the upper right of Chrome to "Customize & control Google Chrome"/click it/a new web page opens/ on that page up top, click "Disconnect your Google Account." Done.

I haven't seen anyone mention SRWARE's Iron browser. It's based on Chromium and doesn't have any of the bloatware crud that Chrome has nor any of the privacy issues. It comes pretty well locked down for security and bills itself as the most secure browser available.

I highly recommend it.
www.srware.net...

And if you are concerned about search privacy - use www.startpage.com...

reply to post by JimmyNeutron


SRWare updates itself regularly too, just last week as a matter of fact. I'll have to check it out, thanks JN.

Wonder how many of these people are against using facebook because of privacy. .