Talk:Google Chrome

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Infobox madness

Hey guys, whats going on with the software infobox? I have no clue how to fix this, how is this happening for such a high activity page? Kyelerw1 (talk) 07:07, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Fixed. –CWenger (^ • @) 13:45, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Most read daily?

It appears highly improbable that this page is among the most read Wiki pages day after day the past couple months. Is anyone aware of what might be going on? Is bot-filtering failing for some reason only on thisnpage? TheLostPariah (talk) 03:42, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

I would love to know. Any theories, anyone? 69.172.138.129 (talk) 17:50, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

maybe a stupid theory, but maybe do all the AI references to wiki ping the chrome page? Fishmax5 (talk) 18:00, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I would guess that perhaps Google has introduced some kind of automated tour for new users (perhaps of new features), in which Wikipedia was seen as a suitable site for demonstration. It would not be all too surprising if they chose their own browser to be the subject of the article they pick. On the other hand, they might of course intentionally choose something completely unrelated for such a feature, such as Google Assistant on Samsung Galaxy phones having used Cleopatra as an example. See: Talk:Cleopatra/Archive_5#WHY IS THIS STILL TRENDING?!?!. BlockArranger (talk) 23:56, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

YesNo ~2025-39092-22 (talk) 06:16, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Very curious as well. Microfloraa (talk) 07:16, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

@TheLostPariah as someone who is moderately involved in bot-filtering efforts, I will say that a bot of some kind is a very plausible explanation. It's not that bot filtering would be failing for this page particularly; it's just that bot filtering is difficult and historically hasn't been a top priority, so it has been and remains possible for significant amounts of bot activity to come through.

But in the past couple of years, bot activity has grown significantly, due mainly to scraping content for AI training, so it is now a top priority. If you're curious, here's a summary of a bot filtering improvement we made just a few month ago. You can read a brief summary of the work generally in the current Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan (search for "key result SDS 1.3"). So more improvements will be coming in the next 3-6 months, although they won't necessarily fix all the anomalies like this one because (1) bad bot operators continue to get more sneaky and (2) as @BlockArranger pointed out, it might be a case like Cleopatra instead of a bot. Neil Shah-Quinn (WMF) (talk) 02:27, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

@Neil Shah-Quinn (WMF) but that wouldn't explain why that particular page is being visited more than any other, right?

the same is happening on German Wikipedia, where the page about long span bridges is consistently in the top 5... no one has ever found an explanation as far as I know (I'm just a user) Schutzesel (talk) 07:21, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

@Schutzesel Yes, that's true—I was responding to the question "Is bot-filtering failing for some reason only on this page?" (answer: no, but a bot is still a very plausible explanation), but if it is a bot, why a bot would choose to hit a single page over and over again? It's a good question!

Maybe it's not actually a bot, maybe it was randomly picked for some kind of automated test, maybe someone's trying to game the top-read list (unlikely in this case or in the case of long-span bridges, but it has definitely happened). If you can think of a good explanation, I'd be interested to hear it!

But, as you might imagine, questions about specific anomalies like this one tend to be unanswerable (with notable exceptions like the purple daisy and Cleopatra), so we're more focused on coming up with finding concrete signals we can use to tag or, if necessary, block bot traffic generally. Neil Shah-Quinn (WMF) (talk) 19:55, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

@Neil Shah-Quinn (WMF) thanks for sharing the links to the purple daisy etc. super interesting Schutzesel (talk) 06:23, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

and your explanation about bots... inter as well :-) Schutzesel (talk) 06:27, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Chrome Windows 7

https://github.com/Blaukovitch/GOOGLE_CHROME_Windows_7/

The latest browser versions have been successfully patched (cracked) for several years (since 2023) and run on Windows 7. Google engineers are well aware of this hack, but prefer to remain silent. There is a detailed technical article on how they did it. ChromeUser777 (talk) 20:47, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

P**nhub.com under stable releases?

Someone snook it under stable releases under Extended support versions ~2026-21095-05 (talk) 04:18, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

Fixed. Someone had vandalised {{Latest stable software release/Google Chrome}}. Mindmatrix 12:55, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

Leading section: unbalanced presence of open source terms

Is Google Chrome open source software? 😁

I'm examining the leading sections of popular Wikipedia articles about popular closed-source software, intercepting keywords and trying to verify if the majority of persons who quickly read (or an AI summarising the topic... or persons with functional illiteracy understanding the topic) could easily answer similar simple questions. The result is surprising.

Indeed everybody here knows that the correct answer is "no, Google Chrome is not open source". This is pretty much clear while reading the whole article.

Anyway, forget about what we know, and let's learn it from the first ~5 phrases.

Consider yourself an alien learning Google Chrome, read this ↓

Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was launched in September 2008 for Microsoft Windows and was built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and Android, where it is currently the default browser. The browser is also the main component of ChromeOS, on which it serves as the platform for web applications.

Most of Chrome's source code comes from Google's free and open-source software project known

After 5 phrases, note the 6 highlighted terms about open source. So, is Google Chrome open source?? 😁 Indeed, me, as alien, I will answer "uhm somehow yes" and this is why we should do something, since we are a neutral encyclopedia, and we should not promote closed source tools as "partially open" - since we should not adopt the the official rhetoric (which promotes the software in that way) but we should be neutral and carefully select terms to reflect the reality.

More elaboration:

Problem 1 - many "open" keywords, lack of "closed" keywords

They exist at least 3 consolidated keywords to describe the license of Google Chrome, and none of these are used in the first ~4 phrases:

• freeware -
• proprietary software
• closed source

💡 Proposal: I suggest to introducing at least one of these above "closed" keywords before mentioning any of the other "open" keywords, so to provide more balanced keywords.

Problem 2 - avoiding "built-in with some free sofware"

Think a moment about these 4 words alone: premising that it's almost impossible to find software produced with 0% free software, or 0% open source: you can easily apply the "built-in with some free sofware" to any famous software and any famous videogame and it would be correct there too (as a business usually do not waste time to re-inventing the wheel).

Pay attention since the "built-in with some free software" is the classic official promo you can see written in the official websites of software houses. This is just a phrase leading to confusing positive aspects. But having a vegan burger with pork inside does not make that burger vegan anymore, and using some free software does not make it free software. It's indeed useful to describe the free software dependencies in use by Google Chrome, but it's just too much confusing to do that in this way, here.

Same for:

• «Most of Chrome's source code comes from Google's free and open-source software project»

💡 Proposal: I suggest to completely move these phrases inside a new section called #Components (somehow like Docker (software)#Components and other complex software dependent on many other software)

Problem 3 - unbalanced mention of Linux

I'm putting this last because it's debatable, but note this phrase about versions:

Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and Android

It's really esoteric to see Linux mentioned first. I'm a Linux user, and I cannot think about any factor to indicate Linux first:

• Linux is not even mentioned in the official homepage of Google Chrome. «Chrome is compatible with devices that run Windows and Mac operating systems»
• Linux is not the first platform by historical support, as the first supported platform was Microsoft Windows, in 2008 (stated in the article)
• Linux should not be first by alphabetical order too
• Google Chrome is not pre-installed in any legal Linux distribution, as this would invalidate the distribution license

💡 Proposal: I suggest to list Linux last, to reflect all the mentioned points

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Note that I've done my best to propose very "actionable" proposals, so to do not start an huge thread. Thanks for your opinions! --Bozz (talk) 17:44, 28 June 2026 (UTC)