Easiest Way to Disable Google Chrome Auto Update

Any program trying to be smart is stupid. Google Chrome is one of them. Its aggressive automatic update mechanism just makes me sick (same as Adobe family). For me, any ”automatic” action without my consent is considered offensive viral behavior. So I used the same method against Google Chrome.






First, remove any Scheduled Tasks placed by Google Chrome which can be found in the control panel.

Second, rename the auto-update program.

Let’s use the god damned Google Chrome as our example.

For Windows XP, go to the following directory (if you cannot find the ‘Local Settings’ directory, you need to enable the show hidden file option):

C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Update\

Rename GoogleUpdate.exe to something like GoogleUpdate.GoToHell.

You can also delete it if you want, but let’s just save it just in case you need to update the software later.

Third, the most important part of the while operation: make a directory named “GoogleUpdate.exe”

This way, Google Chrome will not be able to create the file named GoogleUpdate.exe. Thus, prevent it from trying to enable the update itself.

In short, the above operations in terms of DOS commands are:

C:\>CD "C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Update"

C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Update\> ren GoogleUpdate.exe GoogleUpdate.GoToHell

C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Update\> mkdir "GoogleUpdate.exe"

That’s it. To revert the whole process, simply remove the “GoogleUpdate.exe” directory and rename “GoogleUpdate.GoTOHell” back to “GoogleUpdate.exe”

Easy enough right? You can use the same trick for those auto-update-maniac programs including, but not limited to, Adobe Photoshop, Acrobat Reader…etc. Some programs, like Adobe malware, even place start up processes which runs automatically every time your computer starts. You might want to remove them from the autostart list by cleaning the autostart folder and msconfig.exe (in Windows case).