Is Google Chrome a fact of life ?

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I run, or try to run a “lean” PC.
I don’t use IE or Firefox, I use COMODO DRAGON.

However, no matter what I do, I cannot seem to avoid getting cached with Chrome, even though I did not ask for it, I just cannot seem to fully get rid of it.
Is this now a fact of life, is Google and Chrome going to just simply take over my pc and self-install and once it’s in registry’s Legacy, it’s there for ever, unless I format and re-install ?

How can I avoid Google Chrome ?

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Maybe it’s related to the fact that Comodo Dragon is based on Chrome. Have you tried their support forum?

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Good point, I never thought of it that way. Thanks.

I will continue using Dragon then, there is something about it, much “cleaner” and the fact COMODO is security based.

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I am not sure that is the cause, but it seems a possibility. I’d try to check with those behind Comodo Dragon.

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You know this is a very funny thread right? I know it wasn’t meant to be but…OMG, laugh of the week for me. :cheers:

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You know this is a very funny thread right? I know it wasn’t meant to be but…OMG, laugh of the week for me. :cheers:

Chrome is perfect!

Maybe this is why I “Feel so Incomplete” at times.
I have NEVER tried Chrome.

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If you truly want a lean and fast machine, have you tried Portable versions of apps?

Portable apps don’t actually ‘install’, so the registry stays quick.
Portable apps also attempt to not store data outside of their own folders- makes backing up MUCH easier.

I currently have Chrome Portable, SeaMonkey Portable, and others on my main machine.
Don’t have flash installed; Chrome portable has it. Now I only use Chrome for flash sites and SeaMonkey for everything else.

I also have MS Security Essentials and about 15 other on-demand antivirus scanners.

I didn’t read the rules fully yet, so I apologize if links are a no-no

Portableapps.com

All legal to use- no viruses, no malware.
Other imitator sites might, but this one doesn’t.

Switching all my apps to portable versions cut my boot time from 45s to 6s
Opening an app takes roughly 20% longer, but shutdown is also much speedier.
Updating the apps are a breeze, the ‘base’ app (custom start menu app) includes updating and checking for more verified safe free portable apps.

Definitely take a look if you are truly anal about a lean and fast machine. Might be what you are looking for, or maybe I zigged when you zagged…?

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If you truly want a lean and fast machine, have you tried Portable versions of apps?

Portable apps don’t actually ‘install’, so the registry stays quick.
Portable apps also attempt to not store data outside of their own folders- makes backing up MUCH easier.

I currently have Chrome Portable, SeaMonkey Portable, and others on my main machine.
Don’t have flash installed; Chrome portable has it. Now I only use Chrome for flash sites and SeaMonkey for everything else.

I also have MS Security Essentials and about 15 other on-demand antivirus scanners.

I didn’t read the rules fully yet, so I apologize if links are a no-no

Portableapps.com

All legal to use- no viruses, no malware.
Other imitator sites might, but this one doesn’t.

Switching all my apps to portable versions cut my boot time from 45s to 6s
Opening an app takes roughly 20% longer, but shutdown is also much speedier.
Updating the apps are a breeze, the ‘base’ app (custom start menu app) includes updating and checking for more verified safe free portable apps.

Definitely take a look if you are truly anal about a lean and fast machine. Might be what you are looking for, or maybe I zigged when you zagged…?

Uh… portable apps tend to be far more RAM heavy than their installable counterparts since most of them use a sandbox to translate file paths, registry settings, external file dependencies, and file writes so they have no permanent effect on the OS they’re being run from. That sandbox has to load before the app does and runs from RAM which means slower application load times and more RAM use. I don’t want to sound hypocritical because I do run a few portable apps on my PC I have saved to the HDD but they’re simple utilities; most under 1MB, not a 60MB portable version of Chrome.

There is a far simpler way to prevent apps from starting up with the operating system unnecessarily; plus, I have severe trouble believing you shaved 39 seconds off of your boot time by only switching to portable applications. That doesn’t make a lick of sense.

I’ve chatted with a lot of people who support the theory that allowing apps to modify Windows registry eventually bogs down the OS. There is some logic to that statement; users who habitually install and uninstall applications can quickly bloat out the registry, but most apps don’t ‘search’ for entries. Most app developers assume that once their app writes a value to the registry, it’ll remain there. When it’s needed, it’s specifically pointed to; not searched for. I’m not certain and if somebody else knows better – please say something; but I think Windows only parses the entire registry once per boot. Otherwise, there are very few apps and very few times the OS ‘searches through’ the registry. In other words, there’s no other cause of slowdown. While it might be argued that a bloated registry could slow OS boot, there just isn’t much support for the idea that it bogs down the entire operating system performance over time. There are other causes for that like hardware thermal dispersal and EoL, HDD underpreformance, third-party startup apps and services, malware, heavy pagefile use… I could keep going.

From a minimalist perspective, *SOME* portable apps work well, but usually when they’re specifically programmed to be portable and don’t use a sandbox. Example? XMplay. It doesn’t use any kind of application extraction layer to prevent writing to the registry, it just keeps all it’s settings in an external INI file. Otherwise, using lofty portable apps is the opposite of running a lean and fast machine.

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Let me be more specific then.

The link I posted is to a page that does NOT use translation schemes (to my knowledge) or any of that jargon.

The software within is all open-sourced.

I was able to speed up my machine’s boot process by following these steps:
Backup data. Wipe HD. Fresh W7SP1 install.
Did NOT install any software this time.
Got portableapps.com program
Downloaded & installed same programs as previously, but this time through the portableapps.com program.
reboot machine.
look on in awe of the boost in boot up.

Now, to be honest…

If an individual was to go to great illegal lengths to replace everything with a portable version… besides being pretty illegal, it would be a mess quite quickly I assume.

the apps I replaced with portable versions:

Open Office
Libre Office
rocketdock
Commodore emulators
desktop gadgets
Email and Internet apps

before the reinstall, all these apps (except the emulators) ran on boot up.

after reinstall with portable versions, all these apps (except the emulators) run at boot up.

Perhaps I see a speed gain in better shuffling of the load sequence and nothing else? I suppose that is possible.

But I can state the portable apps I use now all adhere to the settings.ini mentality. no translation to avoid registry writes, as an ini file is used instead.

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I run, or try to run a “lean” PC.
I don’t use IE or Firefox, I use COMODO DRAGON.

However, no matter what I do, I cannot seem to avoid getting cached with Chrome, even though I did not ask for it, I just cannot seem to fully get rid of it.
Is this now a fact of life, is Google and Chrome going to just simply take over my pc and self-install and once it’s in registry’s Legacy, it’s there for ever, unless I format and re-install ?

How can I avoid Google Chrome ?

I’m constantly removing Chrome from my clients PC’s. When I ask them if they downloaded it, installed it and use it, I get the same answer….”what is it?”. They don’t know what it is, where it came from or how it ever got on their computer.

Sound familiar? That’s just what a VIRUS or TROJAN or SPYWARE does. So far, I’ve been able to just UN-Install it. I had to do that again today on an elderly lady’s Laptop. I set her up with Firefox and she’s happy as a clam.
I also gave her a little program (batch file) that I wrote, that daily cleans out all the true JUNK files from the day before. That can prevent her little PC from ever getting totally overloaded with JUNK.
I’ve done that for my customers for many years now, all the way back to Win-98, and it really does work.

It’s not difficult at all, to keep a PC Clean, Lean and mean.

Cheers mates!
The Doctor

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Gotta disagree with you on Chrome there; it’s not doing anything more nefarious that any other sponsoring software is and I think it’s more the likelihood that the vendor is approaching Google hoping for a few bob from a prestigious sponsor rather than somebody like ask.com. Should Google participate in such? Better discussion there. Even better is that folks need to pay attention because if Chrome can get aboard unnoticed…in fact it might not be such a bad idea to use Chrome as a lead in to the discussion of paying attention because it’s benign, the other stuff ain’t!

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