For those of you who use the Chrome browser, or are looking for a reason to use it, Google has started "chrome for a cause". Through December 15 to 19, every tab you open while having the 'chrome for a cause' extension installed will help raise money for one of five charities (your choice), resulting in you contributing vaccines, books, clean water, shelter, and/or newly planted trees, by practically doing nothing.

So far I've opened 100 new tabs since installing the extension. According to Google, that's 4 vaccinations provided, 10 books donated, 0.5 person's clean water provided, 1.0 square feet of shelter built, or 10 trees planted.

List of charities
Download the extension and more info

I'd rather do nothing and not help anybody.

Originally Posted by lawleypop

I'd rather do nothing and not help anybody.

Typical Lawleypops.

This is not charity. Do it if you want and feel good about yourself but it simply is not charity.

Originally Posted by Mazer

This is not charity. Do it if you want and feel good about yourself but it simply is not charity.

Correction: it's not a replacement for 'charity'.

But at least it's something. Better than nothing which, I'm sure, is what the majority of people do. Not many people go out of their way to donate to charities, even it it's just 5 dollars, mainly because it takes effort to locate reps. This incorporates it into their daily lives. It takes no effort. Which is why it isn't a replacement.

Maybe I should have been more clear. There IS charity at work here, but not on your part. It's very nice that somebody is paying for the books and vaccinations of others, but make no mistake; unless you open up your wallet, it isn't you.

That's why I don't consider participating in this to be charity, in and of itself.

oops I didn't realize there was already a thread about this

Cool. Just installed it.

I'm not installing extensions for chrome... And this is silly, there are more productive ways of spending your time...

I'm glad it makes you feel good about yourself though.

Originally Posted by RyanC

I'm not installing extensions for chrome... And this is silly, there are more productive ways of spending your time...

I'm glad it makes you feel good about yourself though.

I'm sorry, can you elaborate please? "More productive ways of spending your time"? It's just 5 clicks. Nothing more. You don't 'spend time' to do anything. You just go about browsing or whatever you do as usual.

Originally Posted by SilentWalker

I'm sorry, can you elaborate please? "More productive ways of spending your time"? It's just 5 clicks. Nothing more. You don't 'spend time' to do anything. You just go about browsing or whatever you do as usual.

Your argument is sound, my statement was in error

just reached the daily limit... 250 tabs

this is a pretty cool cause.

Correct me if I'm completely missing the point, but how does opening tabs help donate to a charity at all?

In my eyes, this is only marginally better than the Facebook status update thing to "raise awareness" for breast cancer or whatever, and only because there actually is an exchange of money happening.

But since opening tabs with an extension installed doesn't actually send money, (unlike texting to Haiti, for example), I don't see the difference between this and Google donating some arbitrarily some of money to said charities. If anything, Google wins because people tend to fall for this stuff and thus will see it as a valid reason to switch to Chrome and think "durr, because I'm holding Ctrl + T for about three minutes, I'm helping kids!"

Actually...that might be a bad example because you are helping kids. I just don't see why Google is requiring people download and install their extension (that I assume doesn't do anything else) to donate.

I have nothing against the idea of donating to charities, but this just seems like more a publicity stunt than anything.

I find yelling at cancer works just as well as updating my Facebook status.

Originally Posted by Entropy

I have nothing against the idea of donating to charities, but this just seems like more a publicity stunt than anything.

I think they should donate 100 million to all the charities, despite what amount of tabs the users get, just to make the public feel like idiots. Haha.