What is GoogleUpdate in the task manager?

Combine said:

This is not a solution. Why? Because there's no problem. Try yourself to use Chrome, you will see this chrome.exe many instances, if you end one of these processes the program may not work properly, Google Chrome may crash.

Exactly! You are right! This is what I have each time I do it!

Petey7 said:

People that have used firefox will tell you that when any part of firefox or flash stops responding, then entire program crashes. In Chrome, when a plug-in, add-on or page chrashes, just that one thing chrashes and the rest keeps going just fine.

Not exactly! Many times I have Chrome crashes without any evident reason!

Petey7 said:

Same thing with extensions/plug-ins (or what ever FF calls them). Some are made by amatuers and are pretty unstable. When one crashes, the entire program goes with it because it is all kept in one process.

This may be true indeed!

If you haven't tried IE8 in Win7 it is finally perfected, stable and with better features like Zoom % and text sizer that holds (unlike Chrome), easier Favorites, faster access to History diced several ways.

Most tech enthusiasts know by now that 3rd party toolbars and search agents destablize the OS, spy on you with their Updaters, and are completely unnecessary since your browser has a stable search box built in. So I am always alert to any Toolbar, Search or other Updater sneaking into Startup, and terminate it with extreme prejudice. Startup Programs - Change

If you uninstall a program, use Revo in Advanced Mode to get out all of the Reg Keys and hidden files. If you already have some left behind, reinstall the program to root it all out with Revo.

Petey7 said:

People that have used firefox will tell you that when any part of firefox or flash stops responding, then entire program crashes. In Chrome, when a plug-in, add-on or page chrashes, just that one thing chrashes and the rest keeps going just fine. When a page crashes, all you have to do is refresh that page or when something like flash crashes, all the pages stay open, but anything requiring flash stops working until you refresh that page. In firefox (older versions at least, I believe in 4.0 they are switching to chromes way of doing things) if flash crashes, the entire program crashes. Same thing with extensions/plug-ins (or what ever FF calls them). Some are made by amatuers and are pretty unstable. When one crashes, the entire program goes with it because it is all kept in one process.

Not quite true now. The change was made by Firefox a long time ago, I think from 3.5 onwards. Actually since last 6 months or so, I do not remember a single FF crash and believe me, I do have a lot of extensions installed. However, it is always better to install the extensions from Mozilla's site and not beta or others from developers' sites just to be sure.

The extensions are the best part of FF, plus the extensive customisation possible.

In Chrome I cannot change many easy default settings, which even IE allows to change.

And coming back to GoogleUpdater, it will remain as long as you have any Google program installed - Earth, Calendarsync, Talk, etc.

Google updater uses very little memory, but if you did want to disable it you can do so through msconfig by unchecking the box under the startup tab.

Well, I have a problem with the Google updater too. At some point my wife updated Skype and did not un-check the "install Google Toolbar" box. Of course I got rid of the toolbar, got rid of all Google start-up items, folders and registry keys, but ... in the list of services there is still a line "Google Update Service". The service is disabled and moreover does not point to anything, since there is not a single Google file left on the machine. But I have no idea how to remove this line from the services list. Anybody knows how to do that?

unifex said:

Well, I have a problem with the Google updater too. At some point my wife updated Skype and did not un-check the "install Google Toolbar" box. Of course I got rid of the toolbar, got rid of all Google start-up items, folders and registry keys, but ... in the list of services there is still a line "Google Update Service". The service is disabled and moreover does not point to anything, since there is not a single Google file left on the machine. But I have no idea how to remove this line from the services list. Anybody knows how to do that?

The SC command can be used to create, edit or delete services. To delete a service, type the following at the Command Prompt:

SC DELETE <service name>

where <service name> is the name of the service as displayed in the services MMC console.

Adding to what Bill2 said, this How-To article gives some screen shots of what you should see:

How to Delete a Windows Service in Windows 7, Vista or XP - How-To Geek

gregrocker said:

If you haven't tried IE8 in Win7 it is finally perfected, stable and with better features like Zoom % and text sizer that holds (unlike Chrome), easier Favorites, faster access to History diced several ways.

I have the IE9 (beta) but believe me, I find it horrible!
For the rest, I agree with you concerning the third part toolbar or extensions..
I prefer FF. The only thing I like in Chrome is the shortcut and the user interface (simple theme without visible menu). Except that, I don't like it at all.
FF is much more handy, crashes less and more secure (at least no spy or ads installed in spite of you!)
I hope that FF will change its interface to be more simple (for example hide the menu bars under one button like in Chrome).