How did Google find my test page?

[deepsand]

As far as Chrome talking to Google, the nice thing is that the browser is open source and anyone really curious can easily find out by browsing the source code, or even by setting up a tracking proxy. I am too lazy to do that today, so I am just going through what the hacker community at large has found. This is fairly in line with what Google readily admits. Chrome only sends the following information to Google.com:

• Search queries (generally, anything missing a TLD or containing spaces or special operators) entered into the address bar.
• Usage statistics, if the user opts in.
• Crash reports, following user prompt.
• The URL being visited if and only if the status code is 404 and the file length is less than or equal to 512 bytes.
• Automatic update check every 25 hours.
• Suspicious sites file downloaded every 30 minutes.
• Bookmarks. When you bookmark a page, the URL is sent to your Google Account - but, only if you are using a development build (Alpha or Beta) and have opted in to Bookmark Synchronization.

Nicely done.

Was this from a single source or multiple ones?

Which one(s)?

[wige]

Most of the points I took off Matt Cutts' blog, then searched for confirmation. The last point is based on a new feature that is being developed for Chrome. I have not found any other references to other communication between Chrome and Google.

It is fairly easy to confirm this information though. Simply install Paros Proxy on your computer, and route the browser to run through it. Paros will give you a report of all HTTP traffic coming out of the browser.

[Tarzan2]

gTLDs are generic TLDs such as .com, .net and .edu. ccTLDs are Country code TLDs such as .us and .uk.

Thanks for the clarification wige. I would never have guess Generic, but I may have figured out the Country code abbreviation on my own.

[deepsand]

install Paros Proxy on your computer, and route the browser to run through it. Paros will give you a report of all HTTP traffic coming out of the browser.

Oh, great, just what I need; another neat toy to suck up my time.

Presumably, the data captured & reported by Paros is not unlike that provided by HttpFox.

And, from a quick overview of the Parosproxy.org site, it appears that one toggles its use on/off by way of the browser's Proxy settings. Correct?

From one tinkerer to another, thanks for the pointer.

[wige]

Correct.

The main difference between Paros Proxy and HTTPFox is that you can change information as it is in transit. Plus, you can use it with any browser. This is the tool I used to determine that Google is capable of detecting rank checking utilities and scrambling the results it returns. And to figure out that there is actually a server, owned by Google, known as the TrustRank Server.

[deepsand]

This is the tool I used to determine that Google is capable of detecting rank checking utilities and scrambling the results it returns. And to figure out that there is actually a server, owned by Google, known as the TrustRank Server.

Were either of these two matters elaborated in other threads?

If so, can you point me to such?

If not, each sounds like a topic worth its own thread.

[Doc]

Correct.

The main difference between Paros Proxy and HTTPFox is that you can change information as it is in transit. Plus, you can use it with any browser. This is the tool I used to determine that Google is capable of detecting rank checking utilities and scrambling the results it returns. And to figure out that there is actually a server, owned by Google, known as the TrustRank Server.

HUH! That's interesting! Any further information on that, wige?

[Tarzan2]

Isn't it amazing how one thing leads to another and there is always more interesting information to be obtained from this forum?
I'm sure glad I found this site!

[sequencehosting]

Ah this also happened to me. It's very annoying. You may wish to create a robots.txt file to deny search engines access to that folder.

[deepsand]

You may wish to create a robots.txt file to deny search engines access to that folder.

Such will not suffice to deny access, but only to ask that a well behaved 'bot not crawl the specified page(s).