Privacy, Google, browsers

[Rothgar]

Hello,

I thought that this forum is (mostly) full of smart people.  I'll ask you my question.

My claim is that google is "too big."  They offer a product and the competitors are few.  I do not think that google is abusing its position, but the potential is there.  It would be best to have a backup plan, an eject button in the event of google becoming tyrannical.  How ever my question is much simpler. 

My question has to do with browsers.  Long ago, I looked at security of browsers and decided on firefox.  Strongly influencing this decision was the fact that firefox is open source.  Recently I learned that firefox will ping google and set a google cookie on your browser, INDEPENDENT OF what ever page you visit.  Now, on it's face this is no big deal, that much may be true, but I can imagine the crypto crowd would not be keen on having every search they do recorded and associated with a google account.  This cookie, from google, can serve as an identifier to each unique user.  The official story is that this cookie prevents malware, which doesn't make any sense to me. 

My question:  Which browser(s) are such that google is not explicitly written into the code?  Which browsers treat every webservice equally and let's me decide which one I want to use.

As a partial answer to my question I found an iron browser.  I'll link to it below.  The problem is that I don't know if it is reputable.  I have used it, and like it.  It is a derivative of chromium, I've been using the portable version, and like it, but I don't know if I should trust  it to install on my machine.  Does any on have any information on this software or this company? 

The company is:  SRWare
The browser is called:  iron

http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php

Any thoughts are welcome.

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[rjk]

SRWare Iron is a good browser. It is based on Chromium source, which is made mainly BY GOOGLE, but it has been cleaned up and fixed to prevent them from tracking you as much.

[Rothgar]

Thanks rjk,

I just wanted to check if there were any known serious issues before installing it on my computer.  I've been enjoying the portable version they have.  I figure I can do all my non-google browsing with iron.  That way, when the NSA gets their super computer built I won't show up as readily.

Does anyone else have recommendations of alternative browsers, or security issues in this iron browser. 

Rothgar

[theymos]

You can turn off that Firefox feature which occasionally gets malware info from Google (it doesn't ping them on every pageload).

Internet Explorer certainly has no Google tracking stuff, and IE9 is pretty decent.

[herzmeister]

i've been using srware iron for years now, so far i'm still a free man (by today's standards that is). knock on wood. 

also, http://nyms.wikispaces.com/Google+Alternatives

[zer0]

Does it still come with the sandbox Chrome offers?
That's basically the only reason to ever use chrome, almost outweighs the spying aspect of google.

I'm fine with lynx to do banking and XXXTerm which was developed by OpenBSD devs.
https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/XXXTerm

[rjk]

Does it still come with the sandbox Chrome offers?
That's basically the only reason to ever use chrome, almost outweighs the spying aspect of google.

I'm fine with lynx to do banking and XXXTerm which was developed by OpenBSD devs.
https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/XXXTerm

Yeah it's mostly chrome code with some features turned off.

[Rothgar]

Yea, rjk "features"

Thanks herzmeister, that is really a wealth of information.  I'm glad people are compiling that list.

[rjk]

Yea, rjk "features"

Thanks herzmeister, that is really a wealth of information.  I'm glad people are compiling that list.

Hehe, sarcasm really doesn't travel well over the internet, sorry about that. Basically all the tracking and perma-cookie shit is removed.