“I occasionally use Chrome as browser on macOS. It’s a fine browser and I use it most of the day at work. But it always bugs me that Google sees fit to run update processes constantly, even if Chrome isn’t running,” Gabe writes for Mmacdrifter. “Luckily, I have Little Snitch on my Mac.”
“I create a ‘No Google’ and a ‘Ok Google’ profile in Little Snitch. These are basically mirror opposites,” Gabe writes. “The ‘No Google’ profile blocks all Google out-going and incoming connections for the Google apps. It still allows Safari or other applications to connect with Google.”
“Go ahead, watch your traffic and see how often the Google updaters run even when the app isn’t running. This isn’t about a privacy concern,” Gabe writes. “It’s about crumby decisions by Google to constantly phone home even when I’m not using their services.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: 1. Yes, “crumby” is an alternate form of “crummy.” 2. Yes, Google do know evil.
Try DuckDuckGo, the search engine that doesn’t track you, instead of Google.
I do my best to avoid goog.
This gives me a chance to ask what is with the constant updates of YouTube? How can there be that many “bugs” to fix? I dont trust Google. What are they really doing?
+1 for Duck Duck Go
If only Apple could allow little on iOS. Then Cook could tell about privacy, mission accomplish. We are giving the power to user to see and block any comm they don’t want..
I know. I am dreaming
Hmmm, that suggests TinySnitch for iOS.
Had chrome on an old Mac never again. Little snitch kept reporting it doing this very same thing but blocking the process did no good as they never used the same address twice. Even when I removed Chrome and everything I could find attached to it Google still kept pho I g home. Only when I updated the OS could I stop it.
I tried Duck Duck Go for a few days but ended up back at Google – sadly
Sadly, I don’t understand why you feel google is better than DDG…
Care to elaborate?
Yeah my first attempt with DDG was similar a couple years ago I found myself going back to Google. Just stick with it and you’ll be able to wean yourself off Google. I very rarely need to go to Google anymore and use DDG 99% of time.
Duck Duck Go works great.
I find myself going less and less to Google for specialized searches.
There are a lot of apps on maoOS that phone home to various Google services. Some are useful, such as APIs and security filters. Some are surveillance, such as analytics and ad sources.
I keep an eye out for the details of every attempt an app makes to contact the Internet. I also go into the configuration of Little Snitch regularly to check what I have approved for each app. Giving permanent app access to a particular port is bad, with the exception of web browsers and other special case apps. Searching through approvals for various Google owned services I don’t want and somehow didn’t catch is also useful.
Next up: How to filter cookies that feed you to Google. That can be somewhat controlled in web browsers, but I highly recommend the ‘Cookie’ app from SweetPea. It’s excellent, regularly updated and well worth the price.