If you’ve recently passed through Oxford Circus Station, you will have noticed only ONE advert on all billboards at the platform: Google Chrome, and how you desperately need it in your life. In fact, this ad is currently plastered all over the UK, and one must ask the all too obvious question:
Why advertise for a FREE product that won’t make any money?
Ah, but advertising is a business, and an evil one too. Funny how Google’s tagline used to be “Don’t Be Evil”, isn’t it? But that’s not for here.
So if the actual product (i.e. a freaking fifth rank web browser that normal people wouldn’t even touch with a barge pole) doesn’t make money per se, then why spend hundreds of millions on an ad campaign? Why is it so important for Google to be “more present” in your life? We already have:
- Google as our browser home page
- the Google Toolbar
- Google Custom Search on millions of websites
- Google as default search box in Firefox
- not to mention Google Mail, Analytics, Wave, YouTube and all the rest of it
Isn’t that ENOUGH? Do we even go anywehre else these days for our web-search needs?
No my friends, it is NOT enough. Because what Google really want is to track every click you make online. Reading your emails and displaying ads for what you’ve got in your inbox is only the start of Project Sneaky.
“Ads by Google” are the past, we know all too well how to avoid them. But imagine the price tag they could put on your online sufing habits. Think how much money advertisers will shill out if you can tell them when and what a visitor will do on your site!
Google will record EVERY click to EVERY website you’ll ever visit, they’ll store it and sell it on.
You’ll probably be signed in with your ever present Google Account anyway, and you’ll be alive statistic. Your real-time spending habits will be available to anyone with enough money, and you’ll receive more targeted spam than ever before. “Get a new Schlong”, “Russian Brides” and “Viagra” was just the beginning, trust me! Google Chrome will take it to a whole new level.
If you install Chrome, they’ve got you by the balls!
My friend John Williams made another interesting point about Chrome: Google are interested to be a cross platform Operating System for the future. With Microsoft’s dominance waning by the day, and surfers doing more and more complex tasks directly through a simple web browsers, Google yearns to introduce the “Super Browser”: one piece of software from which you can run applications as if they’re installed locally.
You can already use email, word processing, spread sheets, Picasa image manipulation and countless other Google Goodies. I’m waiting for YouTube to replace Final Cut Pro already, and for Picasa Pro to be the new Photoshop! The time is nigh when the question “Mac” or “PC” won’t matter anymore – and Google want to be at the forefront of it all.
I’m begging you… PLEASE don’t give in! Stay away from Google Chrome, and enjoy Firefox while you still can.
IMHO Google chrome best for internet surfing and firefox best for hardcore user.