Monday, February 13, 2012

A standard user can install Google Chrome: is that good?

Normally, in Windows 7, and previous Windows versions, in order to install any application you have to have elevated privileges but, for some reason unbeknownst to me (so far) Google Chrome allows a standard user (that is, as opposed to a user with elevated privileges such as the Administrator) to install this browser without any UAC prompts. How did I find out? Well, I downloaded the setup program called ChromeSetup.exe (717 KB) and then ran it, just by habit, as Administrator and installed Chrome. Then, in that particular session, this browser worked fine but the next time I used my PC I could not make it work and then I discovered that  it was installed in the Administrator folder (this is weird, ain't it?) like this: C:\Users\MyPCAdmin\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\. I tried to uninstall it but it was not listed and then I have to logoff and log back on as Administrator in order to do that. Later, logged in as a standard user, I ran  ChromeSetup.exe again and installed Chrome just like that, no UAC prompts. At any rate, it was installed here: C:\Users\MyStandardUser\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\ and always a folder named with the latest version (here: 17.0.963.46) will be added. My only hope is that I'm not running a hacked copy of the installer. Or maybe this installation follows best practices for Windows 7. Any thoughts?

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