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Google totally borgs your computer.

I am fresh from the experience of eradicating Google Update from my PC. I used to have Chrome and Google Earth installed. At some point last week I decided that Chrome was going away. It annoyed me to the point where I uninstalled it. That was that, thought I. How wrong I was !

The next day, I boot the PC, start doing what I usually do, and suddenly Chrome is back, right there on my screen, asking me to log in. Bewildered, I check my Services and found Google Update right back there, and no longer disabled. I disable it pronto. Then I uninstall Chrome and Google Earth, hunt my C: for anything Google and terminate it with extreme prejudice.

The day after that, same start scenario. Boot up, start working, and bang, there is Chrome again. By that time I'm hopping mad. Uninstall Chrome, disable services, scour the disk. This time I check that bloody abomination called the Registry. I find and delete dozens of keys concerning Google (congratulations, Uninstall process, really did a top-notch job there). This time, I think, it's over with.

It wasn't, yet. Again, the following day, same program. When Chome pops up I'm ready to launch a nuclear strike on Google HQ. The thing that finally put an end to this nonsense is when I downloaded Crap Cleaner and found that, of all things, Firefox had a Google Update add-in. Every time I started Firefox, that add-in would check and install Chrome and services. Thanks to Crap Cleaner, I nuked that and now I have peace from the Borg.

Funny thing is, that add-in never appeared in my Firefox extensions in Forefox. I wonder why.

In any case, I now know that, once you install anything Google on your PC, you turn over your computer to the will of Larry Page and the only way to regain control is a proper exorcism.