More than just that. Chrome also "helps" you by scanning your system incessantly, even if you have CLOSED it, and if you try to stop it from doing that, it acts like malware and tries to hide the files and threads it uses, then if you try to stop that too, it uses further questionable measures to take control of your system away from you so it can do what Chrome developers want.
Don't get me wrong, there's a small % of users who would benefit from it taking that much control over your system. I do not want that.
I
Darn phones! This is what happens when people just use the default browser on their phone, making Chrome (for andriod) look very popular, so site admins think that is the OS standard they should meet. When it's the opposite, that they should meet the standard for the little bit more obscure OS and then it will more often be something that works on Chrome too, so they have a higher browser support base by doing so. I know, I know, that seems a little backwards but that is how it usually works out. You don't need to design for the most popular 1 or 2 browsers but rather then next few popular ones. Been there, done that.
Google apps come with an auto update mechanism that continually runs in the background, whether Chrome, Earth, or whatever app is open or not. On Macs, it's called Keystone, and on Windows, I believe it's simply called Update, but based on an open-source called Omaha.
Keystone has a long history of
questionable behavior, and
wrecked havoc on a subset of users of Avid video editing software. Hard lesson learned by some professionals doing real work, not just those who are simply privacy conscious and dislike stray processes running on their machines without their explicit knowledge, and consent.
For
better or worse, this new web hegemony of Chrome, has roots from the popularity of WebKit, via the popularity of Mobile Safari, which was the first mobile browser that provided a real, non-sucky mobile experience. Google used WebKit as the basis of Chrome, before forking it to create Blink.
The paradigm shift to mobile, and the popularity of the two dominant platofrms, and their default browsers, Chrome and Safari, has made life harder for non-Blink/WebKit browsers, aided greatly by lazy web developers who target them, and in some cases, them only, as the largest group.
Mozilla didn't do itself any favors by making changes to Firefox that alienated long-time users, and years of mediocre performance, though now improved, also hurt it.
The Web was created including ideals of being an agnostic place. The IE hegemony was not good for users, nor is a Chrome hegemony, but the large mass of users (most of whom never stray from the default browsers) give the tech giants power and undue influence over how the Web develops.
Anyone who doubts this is a real concern should think back to the earlier days, when watching video online required a myriad of proprietary browser plugins, whether WMP, RealPlayer, Flash, or whatever, which each came with their own issues, before HTML5 became the standard.
Things should just work, for everyone, and not just those who use a particular browser. Sites that don't respect, of subscribe to that concept, don't deserve patronage. That includes sites that purposely cripple their mobile browser UX to goad users into downloading their apps to get a decent experience, partly driven by the opportunities apps provide to do more extensive data mining and other shenanigans.
nvd.nist.gov
