[JohnTHaller]

With the combined search/URL bar in Chrome, every single keystroke of every single URL you type into your browser is sent to Google. With a separate search field, you get the advantages of auto-completion of search entries without the privacy issues of leaking every URL you type.

[derefr]

I guess I don't find much of a problem with this--or rather, I don't think "my URLs aren't being sent to Google" is much of an aid in protecting my privacy; any number of intermediary routers could log the same information for all non-HTTPS traffic (which is most websites where the URLs are at-all telling), and personally-interested attackers are just as willing to tap my line as they are to ask Google for my browsing history.

What I'm really saying is, if you think something is important enough to use any sort of a private-browsing mode? Spend the extra few seconds and open up Tor instead.

[nawitus]

That's a really black-and-white way of thinking about privacy. If using Firefox reduces the amount of logs Google collects about you by, say, 50%, then it's a pretty major gain, even if you're still leaking half of your web history.

[derefr]

How so? I think of it more like a power-law distribution: there are only a few websites anyone would care that I visit, and they're pretty obviously-so when I think about them. Those, the "signal" among the noise, I use Tor for.

Everything else is the same boring noise everyone else generates. The more noise you put out, the less suspicious you look. Nothing says "this person leads a secret life" to the NSA better than having a blank "file" in their automated-dredging system. You want such a file to be full of mundane detail, such that your data doesn't have a different "shape" under traffic analysis than the average 16-year-old who makes public posts about their plans to hang out with their friends at the mall on Saturday.

[nawitus]

Some people care about privacy even for visiting websites that most people wouldn't care that much about.