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As mentioned here and on many other websites, Google is downloading an audio recorder utility on every computer that has chrome installed. And Google is using this tool to record everything in the room without even taking a permission from the user.

I would like to know how can I find out if this thing is present on my computer? If yes, how can I get rid of it? Also I would like to see the acess logs for my laptop microphone? How can I see those logs?

Here is the snapshot of my 'chrome://voicesearch'

enter image description here

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    You could just stop using Google's browser.
    – xangua
    Jun 24, 2015 at 19:09
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    @xangua "Use different software" is not a good answer to the question "How do I change the behaviour of this software"
    – jackweirdy
    Jun 24, 2015 at 19:14
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    And this is why it's not an answer, and just a coment...Anyway the site you quote also mentions this audio recorder is incluided in Chromium browser right?
    – xangua
    Jun 24, 2015 at 19:16
  • The report you linked to is more confrontational than helpful. Better to read the original report and Lifehacker's tips on how to prevent it.
    – joeytwiddle
    Nov 17, 2015 at 8:29

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I am not working for Google nor did I looked at the chromium code. I do not believe that Google is recording your room and store what it records but looks for a signal in the recorded stream that sounds similar to "OK, Google" (-> voice search).

There is a setting in Chrome with that you can turn off the voice search (at least that is what they try to tell us here):

  • Open chrome and enter "chrome://settings"
  • Scroll down to the "Search" section
  • Delete the check-box labeled "Enable "OK Google" to start a voice search"

But as always with proprietary code, you'll never know what is happening in reality...

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  • As far as audio capture goes, that doesn't affect anything. Mine is disabled by default, and a quick check of chrome://voicesearch shows that audio capture is enabled. Doesn't work because I don't have mic support for my laptop, but that doesn't help anyone but me.
    – Andrew Wallace
    Jun 25, 2015 at 1:01
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    Well, there is no need to turn something off: Google understood the issue and will remove the voice search from the (open source) Chromium browser. See here.
    – thedler
    Jun 26, 2015 at 11:35
  • I saw that about an hour after posting my earlier comment.
    – Andrew Wallace
    Jun 26, 2015 at 15:34
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    Ok Thanks for this answer..but how do I check acess logs for my mic in ubuntu?
    – Null pointer
    Jun 26, 2015 at 16:22

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