gHacks technology news » google update http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:29:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 GoogleCrashHandler.exe Removal http://www.ghacks.net/2009/10/19/googlecrashhandler-exe-removal/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/10/19/googlecrashhandler-exe-removal/#comments Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:23:48 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=17450 googleIf you have Google software installed on your computer system chance is that you might see GoogleCrashHandler.exe running on the system if you open up the task manager. GoogleCrashHandler.exe is one of the two Google processes – the other is GoogleUpdate.exe – that might be running on the computer system. GoogleCrashHandler.exe will send anonymous usage data and crash reports to Google. It is an opt in service during installation of Google software products.

To find out if it is running in Windows press [Ctrl Alt Del] on your keyboard to open the Windows Task Manager. According to Google GoogleCrashHandler.exe has the following characteristics:

GoogleCrashHandler.exe runs continuously on your computer if you’ve selected to send anonymous usage statistics and crash reports to Google for certain Google software, like Google Chrome. It helps send crash details to Google when your Google software unexpectedly shuts down. We use this data to help determine how to prevent these errors from happening in the future.

googlecrashhandler.exe

The process can be turned off in the installed Google programs. That could be a bit of a problem if several Google applications are installed on the computer system. In Google Chrome – Google’s web browser – you have to go to into the Options, switch to the Under The Hood tab and remove the checkmark in front of “Help make Google Chrome better by automatically sending usage statistics and crash reports to Google”.

googlecrashhandlerexe

Other Google applications have similar options. If more than one Google app is installed you need to go through all of them to turn off the crash reporting in all of them. Once that is done GoogleCrashHandler.exe will not be running on the computer system anymore starting with the next start of the computer system (restart or kill the process for immediate effect).

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/10/19/googlecrashhandler-exe-removal/feed/ 5 Google Update Changes http://www.ghacks.net/2009/07/03/google-update-changes/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/07/03/google-update-changes/#comments Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:21:18 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=14095 googleThe Google Update process was the bane for many Internet users as it seemed to come up again even if it was disabled on the computer system. The process googleupdate.exe was running all the time on the computer system trying to connect to Google to see if there were any updates for Google software available. It could even happen that the updating process was still running if no Google software programs were installed on the computer system.

It also did feel strange that Google needed a process to update their programs while other companies like Mozilla did not. Especially if the only software by Google was their web browser Google Chrome.

Google has announced changes yesterday that will please many computer users. They basically changed Google Update from running in the background permanently to a process that would check for updates periodically which basically eliminates the googleupdate.exe process in the background as it will terminate after the check for updates.

google update task scheduler

Users can check the Task Scheduler in the Windows Control Panel to change the frequency of the update checks. The Google team points out that the process might be running continuously on some computer systems if problems are encountered with the task scheduler and Windows Services.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/07/03/google-update-changes/feed/ 5 Google Update Turns Open Source http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/13/google-update-turns-open-source/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/13/google-update-turns-open-source/#comments Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:39:09 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/13/google-update-turns-open-source/ googleGoogle Update is a background program by Google that gets installed if the user installs Google software like Google Pack on a computer system. The program has caused some concern – more so than other background updaters with the exception of ctfmon.exe – because of the frequency that it gets reinstalled and reactivated by Google software on the computer system. The annoyance of seeing the Google Update process appear running over and over again after killing and uninstalling it was not the only concern that many users shared.

It was not transparent which data was transferred to Google servers while running Google Updater; And as the software was running in the background all the time it was probably the major concern that was voiced by users and privacy advocates. Google would not be Google if they could not come up with a solution to those privacy concerns: Their solution was to make Google Updater Open Source so that anyone (well not really anyone but those with the skill and knowledge to do so) could analyse the source in detail to find out about the data connections of the application. Google Updater was released with the codename Omaha at Google Code where it can be publicly downloaded.

Users who are interested in removal instructions can take a look at our article about removing Google Update on the Windows operating system.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/13/google-update-turns-open-source/feed/ 5 GoogleUpdate.exe http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/28/googleupdateexe/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/28/googleupdateexe/#comments Sun, 28 Dec 2008 16:36:10 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=9410 Observant computer users might discover the process googleupdate.exe running on their computer system after installing a software product by Google. This can be the new Google Chrome web browser, Google Picasa or many other Google products that are installed locally. The process googleupdate.exe will run automatically in the background and check Google servers frequently for software updates.

Googleupdate.exe uses about 1.6 Megabytes of computer memory while running. This might not be much on computer systems that have Gigabytes of computer memory but can make a difference on low end systems. There is however another aspect that requires some attention. Googleupdate.exe will send data to the Google server whenever it checks for updates.

This data includes a unique ID number, languages, operating systems, version numbers and other install or update related details. Disabling the googleupdate.exe process is thankfully not complicated. The process can easily be killed at any time and will not appear again in the process list during that session.

googleupdate.exe

The Google Update process is added as a service during the first installation of a Google software that makes use of it. To change its behavior one would simply open the services configuration with [Windows R], [services.msc] and hitting [enter]. The service is called Google Update Service (gupdatexxx) with xxx being a random ID)

A double-click on GoogleUpdate.exe will open the properties of the services with the option to change the startup type from automatic to disabled.

googleupdate startup

A click on the apply button will change the setting and ensure that Googleupdate.exe will not be started during Windows startup anymore. Another click on Stop will stop the process for the current session.

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