There is an alternative to the Google Chrome browser if you are worried about the botnet reporting all of your usage statistics to Google. The Chromium browser will provide a good browsing experience with an open source architecture. The website is here: http://www.chromium.org/Home. This browser is available on Linux and Windows and gives the security conscious user a measure of safety against monitoring. it is also compatible with all Google Chrome extensions. As I wrote in my previous posting, Google Chrome does send usage statistics back to Google, this means that the browser cannot be trusted if you want more security. It is better to just use Chromium or Firefox. Mozilla Firefox provides another open-source web browser that has many useful extensions available that can assist with your web browsing. You may download Chromium for Windows at this link: http://www.softpedia.com/get/PORTABLE-SOFTWARE/Internet/Browsers/Portable-Google-Chrome-Chromium.shtml. And Firefox is available from Mozilla: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/.
There is a persuasive argument for the existence of the Google Chrome botnet, this is covered here: http://www.precursorblog.com/content/google-chrome-we-dont-need-your-permission. But with the alternatives that exist, the attraction of the Google Chrome browser is as a mere alternative. Since there are open-source web browsers that allow users of the Internet to browse safely, then we do not need to be restricted to closed source browsers at all. At least we are not using Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer 4.0 anymore. The Active Desktop features of the Windows `98 operating system and the IE 4.0 browser was the main instigator for many-many malware infestations in the past. Nowadays we have moved on from that. With Linux becoming more and more mainstream and the success of open-source web browsers we have more freedom to browse the web using the software configured just how we want. All we ask is that our browsers not track us everywhere we go. There are useful extensions for Firefox and Chromium that allow web users to maintain their privacy. Noscript and Ghostery are extensions that are very good for blocking web tracking code that many websites use. If you install those extensions you can have even more peace of mind and security.
There are security vulnerabilities in Google Chrome that allow remote access to a machine running the browser. This is outlined on this page: http://msisac.cisecurity.org/advisories/2013/2013-023.cfm. A good reason to switch to Chromium instead. On Linux Mint just type sudo apt-get install chromium-browser to install this software and avoid the official Google browser. Another thing about the Google Chrome browser that riled up many security administrators is the propensity for the browser to frequently dial home and silently update parts of the browser without prompting the user. This could be hijacke by a malicious person and used to piggyback malware onto the machine. And you cannot easily block Javascript without installing an extension such as ScriptSafe. And there are not as many options in the configuration panel as are offered by Firefox and Internet Explorer. Google Chrome and Chromium allow you to view saved passwords with a couple of clicks of the mouse, but that comes under a physical security layer, you need to keep your machine safe from snooping people if you have many passwords saved in the browser. But since there are other choices, you are not forced to use Chrome.