Comment Netscape works that way too... (Score 1) 522
As does Mozilla and SeaMonkey.
One field for address bar and search is more convenient than having to click in another area to perform search.
This just is a design choice and doesn't affect privacy in any way. Except if your direct url requests are sent to Goggle. I never used Chrome so I don't know know but I don't think it's the case.
90% of Microsoft announcements are meaningless at best and spread false information at worse. They don't care as long as we talk about their products. That's free advertising. Result: everybody heard at least once about "Microsoft".