Google Chrome Volume on Mac OSX?

[afuna]

Lately I've been seeing Growl Notifications of a Google Chrome being mounted on my Mac, while I'm not running Chrome, and without my having done any action on my part. (I have been keeping Chrome around out of curiosity because I want to try the beta, but I haven't run it in a while).

I do not know what's been going on, but I can't find any way to turn it off -- I can't even figure out where to start looking. ps aux | grep -i google (look for "google" in all running processes) just shows me a GoogleTalkPlugin... and I don't know what that is for either, or where it is from.

I suspect there's something that's just trying to be helpful, but since I don't know what it is, and I don't recall giving anything permission to do this, I don't like it :p And not remembering whether I gave it permission or not, may be my memory being faulty, but whether I gave it permission before or not, I can't find any way to turn it off now.

So now I'm trying to figure out how to purge Google Talk Plugin and Google Chrome from my system. Anyone run into any of this behavior before? Any idea how to stop it?

ETA: Mrrrr, found it. Google Software Update was installed automatically on my computer, probably when I installed Gears, or checked out Google Earth or Google Chrome. I don't mind being asked for permission to check for updates when I start a program, but having something automatically update without notification or permission makes me twitchy, so I've removed all the google software I don't need, leaving only gears.

I'll also do this as well: http://www.google.com/support/installer/bin/answer.py?answer=100386 and hope that doesn't kill gears.

Comments

[baggyeyes]

It could be Google update 'helpfully' updating itself in the background. You need to quit google update. I've usually done this through Activity Monitor since I have no CLI fu., At least on the Mac, which is weird.

I dislike anything that won't let me decide when to update, especially on dialup.

[afuna]

That's the odd thing, I couldn't see the google updater in my preferences! If I could, I'd feel a bit better and also been able to track it down *scowls at it*

Stuff that automatically updates itself is a pain, especially when you're not ready. I sympathize with dial up pains, though usually on my end, I'd have slow internet because a storm is futzing up the cable. And then something suddenly decides to automatically connect to the net for something I don't want and don't need...geez! Anyway, tangent, my sympathies, and boo to impatient software that tries to be smarter than you about your own needs.

[baggyeyes]

Sometimes, I just want to slap the occasionally awesome Google upside the head with a a pile of soggy spaghetti.

Must be hungry.

[ursamajor]

FWIW, I've seen several articles in the last couple of weeks that seem to be implying that Gears may be headed for retirement, and Google is moving towards HTML5 support instead. We shall see, I suppose!

[afuna]

Oh, right! I'd read about that, but had forgotten it. Guess it's good timing for me to have disabled the updater, then, since I won't be missing any future updates, and everything will continue working as normal *g*

(Hopefully! So far so good)