Browsers are on the front lines of the battle for domination of the way people access the Internet these days, and the incumbent leader – Microsoft – it feeling the heat as alternative browsers slowly but surely gain on Internet Explorer’s market share.

MS recently published a video on TechNet which alleges that their Google Chrome – their fastest gaining competitor – violates your privacy because it sends anything you type into the combined URL/Search bar straight to Google, who will then link it to your browser forever.

Here’s the video: See if you can spot any errors an omissions and compare anything you find to the points listed afterwards…

So how did you do?

Microsoft claims that entering anything into the combined box in Chrome sends that information where Google can see it. In this point they are correct – as long as you have previews on.  What they’re saying is, if you type “cream cake recipes” into that box, then Google will see it.

Why would you type “cream cake recipes” into that box unless you were going to search for it?  An how, exactly, is that any different from typing “cream cake recipes” into the Bing search box on Internet Explorer, which coincidentally sends that information back to Microsoft/Bing in order to show you some suggestions?

The answer, of course, is that there’s absolutely no difference whatsoever. If you have any ’suggested results’ feature enabled, then whichever search provider you use is going to see your queries anyway, which is only one key press away from what they’d see if you submitted the damned thing anyway.

This is a complete and utter failure or a video from Microsoft. They are desperate to avoid being overtaken by alternative browsers and have released this steaming pile of nonsense and misinformation to try and claim that Internet Explorer is somehow safer and better for you.

Update:
Well surprise, surprise! Links to the Microsoft TechNet version of the video have been pulled already.