A unique Client ID is assigned to every installation of Google Chrome which theoretically makes it possible to create user profiles and identify users.

But what exactly is the Client ID for? The privacy policy of the Google Chrome browser states:

The client ID is used for the user metrics service. This is an opt-in service that lets users send usage statistics to Google so that we can learn how Google Chrome is being used for the sake of making improvements. It helps us answer questions like, “Are people using the back button?” and “How common is it that people click the back button repeatedly?” Users can always update their preference about sending usage statistics.

The Client ID is therefor not needed to run the Google Chrome web browser. It is also likely that the majority of Google Chrome users is not making use of the metrics service.

Chrome users have two options to deal with the Client ID: They can switch to a compiled version of Google Chrome that does not come with a unique Client ID (see SRWare Iron) or by using a program like Google Chrome Anonymizer which removes the Client ID from the program.

Another program that was recently reviewed over at Life Rocks 2.0 is the Google Chrome Privacy Protector.

The program will scan the computer system for a Google Chrome installation and display whether the Client ID of the web browser has been anonymized yet. A click on the Remove unique ID now button will do that if it has not been done already. All instances of Google Chrome need to be closed for that operation.

Chrome Privacy Protector is available at the developer’s website where it can be downloaded for all Windows operating systems.

It did not take long though before some users figured out ways to remove or alter the client id so that the collected data was useless for Google. This article is going to show three different methods of editing or removing the Google Chome user id to make sure that no permanent data can be collected when using Google Chrome.

Users can check if the following methods work by viewing the contents of the Local State file when Google Chrome is running. The client id should not be visible in the file if a program has been used to remove it.

Google Chrome portable:

The portable version of Google Chrome was developed by a long term reader of Ghacks. Caschy is running his own (German) blog at Stadt Bremerhaven. The current version of portable Google Chrome can be downloaded at his blog. All that needs to be done is to unpack the contents of the download and run Chromeloader.exe.

A positive effect besides portability is the fact that every user will have the same id as long as they are starting Google Chrome using Chromeloader. The client id in the Local State file should read FA7069F6-ACF8-4E92-805E-2AEBC67F45E0.

Google Chrome Anonymizer:

Google Chrome Anonymizer is a tool that has been specifically designed to remove the client id from the Local State file so that the submitted data cannot be used to identify a user over several surfing sessions.

The software program can be started from any location on the hard drive and alters the Local State file directly before starting Google Chrome afterwards. This means that no client id is transferred to Google when using Google Chrome.

Manual Edit of Local State:

If you do not want to use the portable version of Google Chrome nor the Anonymizer then you could edit the Local State file directly and remove the client id entries manually from the file. The problem with this approach is that Google is creating new client id entries if the entries have been deleted previously.

This means that the user would have to edit the file manually every time before starting Google Chrome. The Local State file can be found in Documents and Settings\Profle Name\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\.