The Day Everything Got Tied Together

By connecting all my computers browsing becomes a seamless experience. Work, home, tablet, phone, it’s all the same.

I like the analogy about my new tablet I used a few days ago. It’s like owning a house in a development that isn’t quite finished yet. The tablet’s ready, but in many cases the infrastructure isn’t. New software is coming out nearly every day, but much of what I use still seems covered with dropcloths and scaffolding.

Today Google made its Chrome browser available for my Android tablet. No one knows why Google built this tablet’s operating system without its premier web browsing tool. The point is now moot.

I installed the browser without reading much of the detail surrounding it. Who does? I didn’t think twice when it loaded the first time and Google asked me to sign in.

Signing in. That is the secret sauce!

As soon as Google knew it was me they linked the browser on my tablet to the browsers on my desktop computers. All my bookmarks are shared. I can even pick up the tablet and find the tabs I have open on the browser on my other computers. I haven’t checked, but it seems likely cookies are shared too.

By connecting all my computers browsing becomes a seamless experience. Work, home, tablet, phone, it’s all the same.

Of course the downside to all this is Google has its tentacles into me even more than before. There is little of my life online it doesn’t have access to. It’s got my email. It’s got my web browsing. It knows what apps I’ve downloaded from its Android Market.

To Google my life’s an open book.

That part’s a little creepy, isn’t it?

4 thoughts on “The Day Everything Got Tied Together”

  1. One of the creepiest features I found out about a couple years ago is called Google Web History. http://www.google.com/history

    It saves every single search you query into Google. Every google account is by default on.

    I turned it off and deleted my history but looking back over years of web search history was intriguing and scary at the same time.

  2. There is a reason why I won’t tie all my Google stuff together and that is privacy. While a good chunk of my private life is out there in various places, I would rather have people do a search and destroy to find it, instead of having it available all in one place.

    Which is also why I don’t do Google+.

Leave a Reply to joe s Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *