[wutbrodo]

I use an extension called switch to tab. It uses the omnibox interface to auto complete what you type and switch to the right tab. (and when I'm switching back and forth multiple times between two tabs, I just have muscle memory for how many tabs apart they are).

What are you referring to specifically with the "spying on you" claim? I wasn't aware of any behavior like that other than features that you can turn off that end up sending info to Google servers (like tab sync).