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Google's Chrome Web browser has become one of the most popular in the world, thanks to smooth performance, support for add-ons, and features like casting and voice search that are absent in or only partially implemented by competing browsers like Safari, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.
Pros
Google Chrome uses a process called Google Update to check for updates. Find out more about how Google Update works. Using a Chrome device at work or school? Your network administrator might choose whether you can update Chrome, in which case you won’t see an option to update Chrome. Find out about using a managed Chrome device.
The best add-on support: Chrome slightly edges out Firefox in two ways. One, your add-ons are linked to your Google account. So if you download a new version of Chrome or install an add-on on one of your devices, when you log in to your Google account in Chrome on another device, the browser will automatically download and install those add-ons or updates. Two, the Chrome version of an add-on frequently has more work put into the user interface. For example, the login UI for LastPass is much nicer looking in Chrome than it is in Firefox. That matters if you're logging in and out of LastPass all day.
Plus, Chrome's task manager (access it by pressing Shift-Esc) breaks down how much RAM and CPU power each add-ons is using, so you can identify ones that may be causing issues with browser performance or device battery life. Firefox has some tools to track add-on performance, but they're not nearly as user-friendly.
Great casting support: Casting in Chrome used to require an add-on, but it's now embedded in the browser. If you have a TV with a Chromecast device and it's on the same network as your PC, you can open a Chrome tab on your PC and send it to y0ur television. Or you can cast a streaming video that's embedded on that tab. This is handy for presentations or for watching a video on a big screen. By contrast, for Firefox, only the Android version can stream, it doesn't support as wide a variety of video types, and you can't cast a tab.
Voice search: When you go to Google.com in the Chrome browser, the search field has a microphone icon in it. Click it to search using your voice, if your computer has an enabled microphone. For most people, this is much faster than typing a search query.
Cons
Memory usage could be better: It's not unusual for Chrome to use over a gigabyte of RAM, even when you have just a few tabs open that are more or less static. There are understandable reasons for that -- for one, Chrome has to remember your recently closed tabs so that they can quickly reload on demand. But Chrome does not tend to scale down its usage on devices that have limited amounts of RAM.
Resistance to add-ons that download embedded videos: As the owner of YouTube, Google naturally doesn't want people downloading its videos and viewing them without the ads that make it profitable. But offline viewing is important for people with unreliable connections or who expect to be away from the Internet for an extended period of time.
Google has partly closed the gap with its YouTube Red subscription, which lets you download videos from the site for $10 a month, removes ads, and provides Google Play Music at no added cost. (And conversely, if you subscribe to Google Play Music, YouTube Red is bundled for free.) But that only applies to YouTube. If you dig around, you can find a few add0ons that lets you download embedded videos in Chrome, but they all have varying degrees of sketchiness.
Bottom Line
The most popular browser choice isn't necessarily the best. But despite its issues with RAM usage and limited downloading of embedded videos, Chrome earns its No. 1 spot with smooth page loading, lots of add-on support, and forward-looking features like casting and voice search.
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Software Reporter Tool is a Google Chrome standalone process that monitors your Chrome install and reports if any add-ons are interfering with the normal functioning of the browser. The tool isn’t connected to the web but mainly used by the browser to recognize programs that may conflict with it. It’s visible as a 54Kb executable named “software_reporter_tool.exe“. If you face a high CPU usage for this process or if you frequently see a message Google Chrome Software Reporter Tool has stopped working; you might want to disable or remove it. Here is how you can do it.
UPDATE:
- It is now called the Chrome Cleanup Tool.
- But that too has been discontinued now. You need to use Chrome’s Malware Scanner & Cleanup Tool.
The user is completely unaware of the existence of this component, unless and until the user deliberately searches for software reporter tool. So the question is what is the role of this Chrome add-on? Basically, the Chrome software reporter tool is an executable file that runs once a week and reports the scanned results to the Chrome. To be precise, the tool scans the system to check for the unwanted software applications that may be interfering with chrome browsing experience. Also, the tool reports the Chrome about unexpected advertisements or during the incidents like site crashes. Based on the reports, Chrome then prompts the user to run Chrome cleanup tool as part of the scanning process.
Where is Chrome Reporter Tool
Primarily, Software reporter tool is the executable file that is present in Chrome app data folder as Software_reporter_tool.exe. The Chrome app data folder contains the information about the user’s Chrome profile like browser settings, bookmarks, saved passwords and other users information. Amid these many user data, the .exe file is visible under the SwReporter folder in the Chrome app data folder.
Is Chrome Reporter Tool Safe to use
As a user, you may be apprehensive about the privacy. If you are unsure about your network privacy, you can simply check the authenticity of the tool by simply moving the cursor on the .exe file. You may notice that the component is digitally signed by Google with the file description as Chrome Cleanup tool. So this tool is completely safe. It is worth mentioning that the reporting tool doesn’t have any network communication. The only job of this tool is to report Chrome about the software that may not be working conventionally with chrome browser.
Chrome Software Reporter Tool vs Chrome Cleanup Tool
In other words, Software reporter tool is associated with Chrome cleanup tool. Yes, you got it right! Both the tools are identical.Then you might be wondering what could be the need to have them as a separate tool? According to Google, the software reporter tool reports the scans to Chrome and based on the scanned reports, the Chrome browser prompts the user to remove the unwanted software through Chrome cleanup tool.
While the tool helps in removing obstacles that could hurdle the browser experience, many users are mainly worried about its enormous CPU consumptions on running the tool in the background. The tool could run approximately 20 minutes which may slow down your other activity in the system. It’s worth stating that, unless you run the third party software that constitutes a problem on a regular basis, this tool may not be a source of the intrusion.
Disable Google Chrome Software Reporter Tool
You find the Software Reporter Tool under the following path in Windows 10 and older versions of Windows:
While it is simple and pretty straightforward to remove, uninstall or delete the content of the entire folder or rename the executable file itself, doing so offers only temporary relief as Google starts pushing the Software Reporter Tool to the system back again, whenever you update the web browser.
So, a more viable option is to remove permissions so that no user has access to the folder.
To do this, do the following,
Right-click on the folder SwReporter and select Properties from the menu.
Next, in the Properties dialog box that appears, switch to the Security tab.
Next, select Advanced and choose “Disable inheritance” option.
Next, click on the option “Remove all inherited permissions from this object” in the Block Inheritance window. When confirmed, the action will remove all inherited permissions from this object.
Finally, select Apply and hit the OK button.
Now no other user will have access to the Software Reporter Tool, and hence no updates would be applied to it.
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