I know all about Google’s practices and frankly, I’m not paranoid enough to worry about it. Some of that stuff is necessary to maintain the free web that we all enjoy. Revenue from ads is vital to maintain websites. I won’t use things like NoScript or HIPS because they compromise convenience and usability too much. Having said that, my browser of choice is IE10 but I do have Comodo Dragon, a modified version of Chrome that removes a lot of the things you’re concerned with, installed as well.

I also do not consider the users of Facebook to be “brain dead”. If you want to hide behind walls of paranoia and limit your enjoyment of the full range of what the web offers, go ahead. I choose to see and experience it all. The pond scum malware producers will not take that away from me.