Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 13

Thread: Chromium violating privacy. Where to report?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2011
    Beans
    9

    Chromium violating privacy. Where to report?

    It happens some strange thing, that have no explanation out of a delivered privacy violation, and a mistake in showing it.

    I explain.
    Im under Lubuntu. I just come to make a fresh install of the 14.04

    Im using firefox and midori as browsers, usually. Firefox i keep in another parition, with the .config/ dir linked since a time (i share the bookmarks, and the config stuff with another firefow installation in a third partition, with Voyager (XFCE))

    Last day I installed chromium to see how was his perfomance, regarding cpu comsumption (sometimes pluginsn firefox uses too much cpu, and my netbook is an old one).

    After on installaion, first open, I get in the "settings" side to configure the search engine chosen instead of Google, and there to my suprise was all my Historical of navigation registered from firefox. So, since last year or more, till last moment when i closed firefox before installing chromium.
    (Aclaration, firefox was not runing in this moment, only chromium was)

    How is this possible?
    Who takes the right of doing this?, why (i can think some possibilities)? What are they doing with this information (if they copy without permission for sure sending somewhere also without... where?)? And the most important: How to prevent other people of this intrusion?

    Thanx for any orientation... explanation... or redirecting...

    Caroxo

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Beans
    Hidden!
    Distro
    Ubuntu Development Release

    Re: Chromium violating privacy. Where to report?

    You probably clicked on ''import from Firefox'' while installing chromium? But I could be wrong and I doubt there is any place to complain about that, unless you go out and file a registered complaint. That would be extreme though.

    Also, Chromium eats more CPU and RAM than Firefox. If you want to go lighter, stick with Midori, or go with text browser if must.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    UK
    Beans
    Hidden!
    Distro
    Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish

    Re: Chromium violating privacy. Where to report?

    Quote Originally Posted by CaRoXo View Post
    How is this possible?
    Who takes the right of doing this?
    Most likely you. When you first open a freshly-installed chromium, there is a bar near the top that says, "For quick access, place your bookmarks here on the bookmarks bar. Import bookmarks now..." If you click on the underlined bit - which is a link in the browser - you get a small window which asks if you wish to import bookmarks and settings from Firefox. The pre-ticked options which you can unselect if you wish, are Browsing History, Favorites/Bookmarks, Saved passwords and Search engines, which include all the things you are complaining about.

    I guess you must have authorised all these things to be imported from Firefox yourself. All that chromium does is to import this stuff from the .mozilla folder in your home folder.

    I doubt there is any intrusion or anyone sending anything anywhere.
    Ubuntu 20.04 Desktop Guide - Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop Guide - Forum Guide to BBCode - Using BBCode code tags

    Member: Not Canonical Team

    If you need help with your forum account, such as SSO login issues, username changes, etc, the correct place to contact an admin is here. Please do not PM me about these matters unless you have been asked to - unsolicited PMs concerning forum accounts will be ignored.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Beans
    Hidden!
    Distro
    Ubuntu Development Release

    Re: Chromium violating privacy. Where to report?

    And to add to that, you should also consider ''cleaning the browser'' once in a while.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Beans
    4,941

    Re: Chromium violating privacy. Where to report?

    Quote Originally Posted by LastDino View Post
    And to add to that, you should also consider ''cleaning the browser'' once in a while.
    +1 Browser can slow down or even freeze (if ram is short) when cache grows too big.
    Last edited by monkeybrain20122; June 16th, 2014 at 08:40 PM.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    May 2011
    Beans
    9

    Re: Chromium violating privacy. Where to report?

    Hey, first thanx coffecat, lastdino and monkeybrain for your time/answer.

    Yes, I know, but seems I forgot to clean cache since last year. And Yes also, Im using midori and now starting with terminal-browser. But firefox is still the one with im managing bookmarks and using like "base", even if trying to use less and less...

    Yes also, I know that you are offer to import the stuff. But, I wasnt. I never check or uncheck any pre-ticked option. So if all this options should be ticked, should have imported the other stuff also. But not. Only historical. No Bookmarks. No search engines (was this i was trying to set when i saw it). And passwords... I dont know. I just got pissed and closed chromium. But hope not.

    I was not drunk or under any effect for forgeting have done all this, or ticked or unticked... I would not submit the question if were like this. Just did it becouse i dont find logical explanation.

    And still dont find.

    Ahh sorry, I forgot something maybe important. This chromium fresh installed, come also with a bug. The keyboard doesnt work with. I cant type anything, while at the same time in any other program i can.

    Anyway i understand that is difficult to figure it out. And if it was a bug this of the importing, that is related somehow with this of the keyboard, have less idea still.

    For me just smells strange, and I wanted to know the opinion of people with more idea that me.

    Thanx again for your time.

    CaRoXo

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Beans
    Hidden!
    Distro
    Kubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa

    Re: Chromium violating privacy. Where to report?

    well the Chromiumk source is open and you can have a look in it for your self if you htink something is fishy. or report it and have someone else look it in for you.
    Read the easy to understand, lots of pics Ubuntu manual.
    Do i need antivirus/firewall in linux?
    Full disk backup (newer kernel -> suitable for newer PC): Clonezilla
    User friendly full disk backup: Rescuezilla

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Beans
    70
    Distro
    Xubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

    Re: Chromium violating privacy. Where to report?

    Quote Originally Posted by CaRoXo View Post
    Hey, first thanx coffecat, lastdino and monkeybrain for your time/answer.Ahh sorry, I forgot something maybe important. This chromium fresh installed, come also with a bug. The keyboard doesnt work with. I cant type anything, while at the same time in any other program i can.

    Anyway i understand that is difficult to figure it out. And if it was a bug this of the importing, that is related somehow with this of the keyboard, have less idea still.

    For me just smells strange, and I wanted to know the opinion of people with more idea that me.

    Thanx again for your time.

    CaRoXo
    There is a bug with Chromium and Ibus on Lubuntu. You just need to exit Ibus with the icon on the taskbar and all will work properly. Hopefully it will be fixed in Chromium 35.

    I will have to agree with the posts above, when installing Chromium it will ask you if you want to import all your previous browser history and bookmarks. You probably overlooked this step and ended up importing all you had accumulated in Firefox.

    There is nothing fishy with Chromium, it's an open-source project that serves as a base for Google Chrome. You don't have any kind of trackers in Chromium and thanks to the Ubuntu dev you have the most stable builds made available for you as well as the latest Chrome pepperflash plugin. On Windows, it's much more complicated to get stable builds and there is no update system.

    Not to mention, Chromium is a very fast browser, and that makes all the difference on weak hardwares.
    Last edited by Tar_Ni; June 18th, 2014 at 10:37 PM.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Beans
    2,336
    Distro
    Ubuntu

    Re: Chromium violating privacy. Where to report?

    The data Chromium imported is stored in files -- essentially text files -- on the machine in the user's home directory. It's the data -- cookies, bookmarks, cached files, etc. -- all browsers generate in use. Offering to import it is a convenience, not a bug or a privacy threat. Chromium simply copied the Firefox files to its directory and probably massaged them a hit so Chromium can work with them.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Beans
    0

    Re: Chromium violating privacy. Where to report?

    Quote Originally Posted by buzzingrobot View Post
    The data Chromium imported is stored in files -- essentially text files -- on the machine in the user's home directory. It's the data -- cookies, bookmarks, cached files, etc. -- all browsers generate in use. Offering to import it is a convenience, not a bug or a privacy threat. Chromium simply copied the Firefox files to its directory and probably massaged them a hit so Chromium can work with them.
    You mean that Chromium gets data from Firefox without any default values?
    I heard that it can do this from Explorer, but what about Firefox.... I'm not sure....

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •