Chrome Is Scanning Files on Your Computer (2018)
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Re: Chrome Is Scanning Files on Your Computer (2018)
#2Unfortunately, that Chrome scanning utility overheated my 2011 Macbook Pro and killed its graphics card. When the Chrome scan ran, it pegged the cpu at 100% and caused the fans to spin up to a very loud full throttle. However, the Macbook couldn't prevent the runaway overheating (the blue screen of striped lines from the death of AMD graphics card). Yes, the Macbooks from 2011 are notorious for having bad cooling design but everything was fine for 8 years until Chrome killed a $3000 laptop.
Fyi, the executable is "software_reporter_tool.exe" and it lives in:
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\SwReporter\
Re: Chrome Is Scanning Files on Your Computer (2018)
#3Unfortunately, that Chrome scanning utility overheated my 2011 Macbook Pro and killed its graphics card. When the Chrome scan ran, it pegged the cpu at 100% and caused the fans to spin up to a very loud full throttle. However, the Macbook couldn't prevent the runaway overheating (the blue screen of striped lines from the death of AMD graphics card). Yes, the Macbooks from 2011 are notorious for having bad cooling des…
There is an even better way to prevent this, and that's not having chrome installed at all. Firefox used to be bad, but now it really is not strictly worse in any category.
Re: Chrome Is Scanning Files on Your Computer (2018)
#4Unfortunately, that Chrome scanning utility overheated my 2011 Macbook Pro and killed its graphics card. When the Chrome scan ran, it pegged the cpu at 100% and caused the fans to spin up to a very loud full throttle. However, the Macbook couldn't prevent the runaway overheating (the blue screen of striped lines from the death of AMD graphics card). Yes, the Macbooks from 2011 are notorious for having bad cooling des…
There is an even better way to prevent this, and that's not having chrome installed at all. Firefox used to be bad, but now it really is not strictly worse in any category.
>Firefox used to be bad, but now it really is not strictly worse in any category.
I can't run javascript bookmarklets in Firefox.[0] This makes Firefox unusable for me on sites like Youtube, Vimeo, etc.
In Chrome, I use this technique extensively to speed up videos beyond 2x. (E.g. 8x playback speed to quickly get past the ads.)
Yes, you can still paste javascript in a Developer Tools console tab to modify the current page's contents but that's very cumbersome.
EDIT to the downvoters:
- manually pasting "javascript:x" in the url bar does nothing to the current webpage
- putting "javascript:x" into a bookmark and then using the UI to select that bookmark launches a new empty tab instead of modifying the current webpage
If I have posted incorrect information, please state what I'm doing wrong. I just tested the above on Firefox 68.0.2.
[0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32782860/javascript-book...
Re: Chrome Is Scanning Files on Your Computer (2018)
#5Unfortunately, that Chrome scanning utility overheated my 2011 Macbook Pro and killed its graphics card. When the Chrome scan ran, it pegged the cpu at 100% and caused the fans to spin up to a very loud full throttle. However, the Macbook couldn't prevent the runaway overheating (the blue screen of striped lines from the death of AMD graphics card). Yes, the Macbooks from 2011 are notorious for having bad cooling des…
Thank you.
Re: Chrome Is Scanning Files on Your Computer (2018)
#6I wonder if this happens on other platforms too...
I know that at least libreoffice on linux scans your files for some odd reason...
Re: Chrome Is Scanning Files on Your Computer (2018)
#7I wonder if this happens on other platforms too... I know that at least libreoffice on linux scans your files for some odd reason...
People could always use the snap versions of libreoffice/browsers and either limit access to the home directory or remove access to the network. It seems the easiest way of applying a Android permission based model to Linux.
Alternatively, there are also firejail profiles which could be used for restricting what these tools can do.
Re: Chrome Is Scanning Files on Your Computer (2018)
#8The title is alarming enough that I immediately searched for a way to block it.
Apparently, this is only specific to Chrome on Windows:
> [it] looks through your computer in search of malware that targets the Chrome browser itself using ESET’s antivirus engine. If it finds some suspected malware, it sends metadata of the file where the malware is stored, and some system information, to Google. Then, it asks you to for permission to remove the suspected malicious file.
Seems fairly reasonable.. At least I'm not affected by it, being primarily on Mac and Linux.
Another comment here mentions "Chrome scanning utility" on a MacBook though. Ideally I wouldn't use Chrome at all, but I need it for developing and testing web applications.
Just wanted to mention this open-source firewall (macOS application) called Lulu, with which you can (mostly?) block Chrome and other apps/services from phoning home behind the scenes.
Re: Chrome Is Scanning Files on Your Computer (2018)
#9Unfortunately, that Chrome scanning utility overheated my 2011 Macbook Pro and killed its graphics card. When the Chrome scan ran, it pegged the cpu at 100% and caused the fans to spin up to a very loud full throttle. However, the Macbook couldn't prevent the runaway overheating (the blue screen of striped lines from the death of AMD graphics card). Yes, the Macbooks from 2011 are notorious for having bad cooling des…
That is Macbook's issue though, no software should be able to damage the hardware, no matter what it does, unless there is a hardware flaw.
Re: Chrome Is Scanning Files on Your Computer (2018)
#10Unfortunately, that Chrome scanning utility overheated my 2011 Macbook Pro and killed its graphics card. When the Chrome scan ran, it pegged the cpu at 100% and caused the fans to spin up to a very loud full throttle. However, the Macbook couldn't prevent the runaway overheating (the blue screen of striped lines from the death of AMD graphics card). Yes, the Macbooks from 2011 are notorious for having bad cooling des…
No, Chrome didnt kill your Macbook, Apple shoddy cooling design and defective Nvidia GPU did.