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Tell HN: Using Gmail? You will be force logged into Chrome

532 points by ronilan 8y ago

So, it turns out Chrome 69 is a lot more than just redesign of the tabs and removal of the www from the url. I'm using the Mac version of Chrome (Version 69.0.3497.81 (Official Build) (64-bit) to be pedantic). Up until two days ago, logging into gmail and logging into chrome were two different things, as they obviously are (one is a web service the other is a web browser, to be pedantic again) I would usually be logged into gmail in the browser, but would only log into Chrome on special occasions and/or with specific accounts. As of today, if I hit www.gmail.com and log in, I'm automatically logged into Chrome. If I log out of Chrome, I'm also logged out of gmail. This can't be a bug... can it?

shekelstien 8y ago
I hear that Brave and Proton mail are pretty good.
raverbashing 8y ago
It probably is not a bug Though "Chrome integration" with Google is pointless at best and an awful user experience. I made the mistake of logging in w/ Google on Chrome mobile. Resulting in all my bookmarks being synced on the phone (because of course I want my desktop bookmarks on my phone. Obviously. Thanks Google). This is a mistake I'm not doing again.
- chris_mc 8y ago
  Most people do want that, though. They literally want Google to sync everything for them. Makes sense to me, I don't see your POV to be super common, honestly, except maybe amongst the die hard tech people of hn and such.
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    In mobile I want/have the bookmarks that make sense for mobile usage. I believe this applies to most people.
    - Ajedi32 8y ago
      Which is why there's a seperate folder in Google bookmarks for mobile bookmarks.
badrabbit 8y ago
Why on earth are you using chrome if you cared about that kind of stuff so much? No,it isn't a bug. It has always been that on android,using chrome browser or the youtube app meant that whatever google account was used in play store is also used to log you into google both on on chrome,yt,maps,etc... They just brought that feature to desktop,I suppose now you'll be logged into whatever google account last used? This includes payment info you inputted on the play store or anywhere else. What exactly is your concern,I can't imagine you'd expect boundaries and privacy to be a thing google would respect with any of their products. They say "don't be evil" but they're pretty wishy-washy and flexible as to what they consider evil. I'd equate complaining about privacy and boundaries with google and fb to complaining about the rude staff and unpleasant patrons in prison.
- codezero 8y ago
  A lot of people use chrome because it has the best security according to a lot of experts, including here on HN. It’s reasonable to complain about a drift in functionality that spans the web to native gap in my opinion.
  - prepend 8y ago
    Really? Perhaps 10 years ago, but Chrome is pretty ok when it comes to security. This eval that is Google's top result in search [0] has them tied for 6 out of 9 (5.5) and Chromium is better for security. [0] https://www.expressvpn.com/blog/best-browsers-for-privacy/ https://www.expressvpn.com/blog/best-browsers-for-privacy/
    - konart 8y ago
      They avaluate both security and privacy in this article. The comment above was about security alone.
    - overcyn 8y ago
      From that link you posted... > Security: Google has always been known as a leader for browser security, and for good reason... All said, Google’s leading position in browser security is undisputed. 5/5
kilon 8y ago
Why is this a problem ?
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Data privacy and user tracking.
  - akerro 8y ago
    Hey! You're using Google Chrome and Google services! Leave your expectation of privacy at the door.
- vemv 8y ago
  Now Google can (potentially) associate your browsing history with your identity, whereas before, any read of one's history would be anonymous.
  - geggam 8y ago
    To think Google ( doubleclick ) and their competitors ( aggregate knowledge ) and others in that space arent already associating your browser history with your identity is a bit naive.
  - i_am_nomad 8y ago
    In theory this is true, but Google almost certainly does that anyway using any number of alternate methods.
  - konart 8y ago
    >Now Google can (potentially) They could do this earlier too. Just needed more recources and still with lesser precision.
  - adiusmus 8y ago
    Potentially? They already have. Now they’re just linking things because they’re wanting easier and convenient access as well as “terms of service” clarity. I think it’s safe to say google etc don’t require cookies to track you. And they’ve already mapped out any secondary gmail accounts you have. And they have your complete browser history joined from all devices they’ve stitched into your shadow profile which you can’t delete or access. Incognito mode is only good for the little spy guy graphic. This is the 21st century - all activity is logged for future sale.
wellyeah 8y ago
Will it force me to login to Chrome even if I've never created a Chrome account?
- ninjaranter 8y ago
  Your google account is your Chrome account.
yuhong 8y ago
I wonder how does this exactly work technically. I am still working on the essay/overview BTW.
williamscales 8y ago
You didn't say why this is important to you so it comes off as a bit of a complaint for the sake of it. Are you concerned about your web history going to your Google account? You can turn that off. Don't believe that will really turn it off? Then don't believe that Chrome wasn't already logging your web history without your knowledge. Is it sad that respect for privacy has degraded this far? Absolutely. Is the merging of Google website logins with Google Chrome browser login a significant decrease in privacy? I believe it really isn't at this point. I've switched over to Firefox and it's quite fast and nice these days.
- yuhong 8y ago
  I had a separate Ask HN. Tracing some of the history, including Google Analytics that is mentioned in my essay/overview, is quite interesting.
  - williamscales 8y ago
    It was a long essay, and I admit I skimmed it, but my main takeaway is: Google gon get ya, almost whatever you're doing.
    - yuhong 8y ago
      I am trying to trace the problems back to Larry/Sergey though. I am thinking of getting rid of the malware part to make it a bit shorter BTW.
- RaleyField 8y ago
  > to you so it comes off as a bit of a complaint for the sake of it. People like you really rise my blood pressure. No, it's not important to him/her, bad defaults[1] are important for everyone because they are incorrect design. The correct design is not to synchronize anything before obtaining informed consent. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern
  - williamscales 8y ago
marssaxman 8y ago
This kind of chicanery is the reason I won't use Chrome for anything but browsing Facebook.
- urda 8y ago
  You don't even need that, install Firefox and use their container for Facebook: https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/facebook-container-extension/ https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/facebook-container-extensio...
  - interfixus 8y ago
    Even better: Install Firefox and use nothing for Facebook.
    - cdancette 8y ago
      That's not an option for everyone
      - tobltobs 8y ago
        Your live depends on facebook?
        jpindar 8y ago
        I love my relatives, and Facebook is how they communicate.
        ravenstine 8y ago
        Don't they all have email addresses? I'm not saying that you're entirely wrong, because I've used that rationalization for keeping Facebook in the past. What I do instead is just maintain an address book of everyone I know and send them an update on my life every once in a great while. It's much more fulfilling.
vemv 8y ago
A typical tendency in distasteful projects: couple everything, remove choice. Make it one-size-fits-all. Switching to Chromium.
- nextos 8y ago
  Chromium was previously downloading a binary blob on its own, which is a bit upsetting: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=786909 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=786909 https://lwn.net/Articles/648392/ https://lwn.net/Articles/648392/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9724409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9724409
  - ChristianBundy 8y ago
    I've posted this a few days ago, but I switched from Chrome to Chromium to Firefox to GNOME Web (aka Epiphany) and it's everything I wanted: a stable and mature WebKit browser for all users (not just tech workers) with Firefox sync integration and no Google bullshit.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- aasasd 8y ago
  Chromium has this behavior too, at least if you enabled the sync previously—and it's not new, it's been around for a long time, like a couple years or more.
Cockbrand 8y ago
This I can't reproduce with Chrome 69 on the Mac. I just logged into Gmail without being logged into Chrome. Or did I misunderstand something here?
phyller 8y ago
I thought I had this experience years ago, I'm surprised this is only happening now. I use an email app (just regular Mail on the mac) to access my Gmail. Your email is stored and synced locally so it is accessible offline, and you don't get these shenanigans. Also I use Firefox. But let's be honest, even if you aren't logged in, and aren't using Chrome, at this point if Google is not recognizing you it is only because they are pretending not to. I'd bet they have a pretty good record of my internet activity.
- zitterbewegung 8y ago
  What they mean is to log into the sync feature which is part of Chrome .
ComputerGuru 8y ago
This happened to me yesterday on Windows too, to add another datapoint to your sample set.
lurker456 8y ago
The cynic in me thinks this is in anticipation of GDPR related challenges. Users that accepted a TOS are easier to track (at least, it's easier to mount a legal argument that some tracking and profile linking is ok) compared to users that never accepted anything at all. next up: push for new standards that favor chrome over other browsers.
- hegz 8y ago
  The gdpr agreement form on websites usually requires you to enable 3rd party scripts and cookies otherwise you get hit with endless popups about it. Someone should make a browser extension that automatically denies every gdpr popup.
  - noisem4ker 8y ago
    https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ This one aims to automatically close all such popups. It doesn't "deny" permissions, but that's what content blockers such as uMatrix are for.
fareesh 8y ago
This causes a few other problems. For example I use Hangouts Chat (chat.google.com) on my Google Apps account, and I also have a personal gmail. Ever since the change I have to log out from my personal gmail to use Hangouts Chat, because it is looking at my Chrome account and telling me that I'm not part of the organization. I can't switch to the Google Apps account at all.
- ganoushoreilly 8y ago
  This is why setting up user profiles is handy in chrome. Keep one for work, one for home.
  - 4ad 8y ago
    But being logged into your personal Hangouts and using the work Chrome at the same time does not seem to work anymore.
  - the_duke 8y ago
    This is why it's handy to just use Firefox.
    - tokyodude 8y ago
      firefox's multiple profile support is crap. I actually do want multiple profiles that do things like sync passwords, bookmarks, extensions, themes across machines per profile. AFAIK firefox can't run multiple profiles at once
      - asadotzler 8y ago
        You can run multiple profiles at once in Firefox. I've been doing this for the better part of two decades with Mozilla browsers. You just need to add the no-remote option to your launcher.
      - rocky1138 8y ago
        `firefox -P`
guptarohit 8y ago
Not just Gmail, but I got logged out from other websites as well! [chrome 69, linux, ubuntu 16.04]
negutron 8y ago
Someone else said 'your chrome account IS your google account' They are quite right. Google created an identifier that makes email as an id obsolete, and its called GAIA_ID. You can google it. Basically all of their services are keyed off on their universal gmail gaia_id but they planned on using this even beyond gmail but as a 'universal identifier' to track everyone on every service that interacts with google, such as tying the gaia_id to the apple id, facebook id You guys really don't get it do you? Google is oceania, it's five eyes / cia-nato and they wanted to have a 'global identifier' to identify everyone on the planet. If they haven't already achieved it (likely they have) then it's something they're aiming for. google is a technofascist information monopoly, and given that they've been cenosring people politically on youtube by demonetizing and deplatforming them, that should give you pause, in case your opinons 'just so happen to evolve with new information that disagrees with the reigning silicon valley biased cult of opinion called 'the establishment'' sorry I went political here, but software is becoming VERY political. Things in firefox break more and more every day, forcing you to use chrome. FF widevine support breaks all the time, oops there goes NETFLIX and HULU and AMAZON on your linux platform... this kind of thing. Google is widevine, so you better be politically aligned with google or else....no DRM check for you, no video for your customers
- ebikelaw 8y ago
  Only on Hacker News is the fact that a database has a primary key for user accounts evidence of a global conspiracy against humanity. Here's some bad news for you: literally every company with a website and user accounts has the same scheme.
spookyahell 8y ago
You are not essentially logging into Chrome, well yes you are but only for local purposes and that's not so bad... the link is only local, it will not be syncing any data without your consent, it used to mean that.. and Google DID do very poorly presenting this version of their browser (proven by other posts here)
vbezhenar 8y ago
I can confirm on Windows, exactly the same behavior. I guess, it's time to start using Chrome account, never needed it, but whatever.
duxup 8y ago
I wish I could just have multiple Chrome installs segregated from each other for different purposes. I used to use Firefox for work and chrome for personal stuff. My new employer uses Google's business apps so it is easiest in Chrome....but that knocks out my two browsers at once system. Often I'll need something I saved to drive (sample code, doc, something) or bookmarked in my personal account that suddenly was relevant to work.... swapping logins is a pain....
- danmg 8y ago
  Use the --profile option
  - duxup 8y ago
    Your talking about just multiple logins like Google allows right? I still have to switch back and forth and would rather keep both open.
    - joshuamorton 8y ago
      You can have them open in different chrome windows simultaneously. I keep one widow with my personal login and another with my work account and it works fine.
      - duxup 8y ago
        Thanks I'll give it a try again.
- qalmakka 8y ago
  You are fundamentally describing Firefox Containers. They are awesome and they work just like that, allowing you to have multiple independent sets of cookies for each context you need.
  - explainplease 8y ago
    That sounds great! But if Mozilla follows the pattern they have set, they will discontinue that extension, just like they dumped Tab Groups, etc. So why should users invest in using it and building workflows around it, when it's probably just another rug to be ripped out from under them?
r721 8y ago
"Google calls the feature "Identity consistency between browser and cookie jar" and a Chrome representative on the official Google Chrome Help Forum confirmed that this is the intended behavior. >This is an intended behaviour if you are using the same Google Account for your Gmail and Chrome. If yes, you'll be signed out of Chrome when you signed out of Gmail account. ... Good news is that it is possible currently to disable the feature. Doing to breaks the link between the Google Account in Chrome that is used to sync data and Google accounts on Internet sites. Note: Google may remove experimental flags like the one described below at any time. As long as it turns up when you run the steps below it is supported. Here is what you need to do: 1. Load chrome://flags/#account-consistency in the browser's address bar. Google Chrome should display the flag Identity consistency between browser and cookie jar at the top. 2. Set the flag to disabled with a click on the menu and selecting disabled from the context menu. 3. Restart the Chrome browser. Chrome breaks the link between the Google account in Chrome used to sync data and Google accounts that you sign in using the browser on Google sites." https://www.ghacks.net/2018/09/08/disable-the-sign-out-link-between-chrome-gmail-and-other-google-services/ https://www.ghacks.net/2018/09/08/disable-the-sign-out-link-...
- ReverseCold 8y ago
  Alternatively just get Firefox, use https://ffprofile.com/ https://ffprofile.com/ once, and stop dealing with Chrome. Ta-da, no more spyware.
  - colordrops 8y ago
    Yes, this move is a deal breaker. Defaults matter, so I'm switching to Firefox.
    - cm2187 8y ago
      I just did the same. After having used chrome since pretty much version 1.
  - dagenix 8y ago
    Calling that behavior "spyware" is a bit of a stretch.
dgudkov 8y ago
To make it worse, the Chrome account is always user id = 0. You can't have other account logged in first, then log into Chrome -- it will kick out the first account. This breaks all bookmarks that use particular user, i.e. contain /u/1 or /u/2. What a mess.
superkuh 8y ago
If it's a problem you should stop using both gmail and Chrome. Don't support companies that are anti-user.
- rosser 8y ago
  My choice to use gmail was made by my employer. I like my job. How am I supposed to pass, again?
  - kstrauser 8y ago
    Are you sure? My employer uses gmail, which I access via Mail.app exclusively. I bet I open the web app maybe once or twice a year, usually by clicking a link in a calendar event. It's perfectly possibly to use gmail-the-service without using gmail-the-app.
    - rosser 8y ago
      I find Mail.app to have a terrible UX, but I did try it, thanks. My standing solution is to use one browser to log into big-G services, another to log into FB, and a third for everything else.
      - epicide 8y ago
        If you have a "zero inbox" type approach, I find Mail.app to be serviceable, but to each their own. There are a few others to try. I used Airmail a few years ago. However, be on the lookout for "native" email clients that are really just web gmail wrappers.
        rosser 8y ago
        I've been curious about Airmail, but I'm tiring of OSX, to the point that I'm leaning towards switching back to Linux.
        8y ago
a13n 8y ago
You could use Missive to avoid this. It'd let you keep using your gmail account without having to ever log in to gmail in Chrome.
Havoc 8y ago
huh...so that's why chrome suddenly wants to sync my bookmarks to my gmail username. Firefox it is then. This is a little too shady for my liking.
Androider 8y ago
Once again G Suite customers get the shaft. I have a personal Gmail account, and a business G Suite account, and this change makes working with the two accounts a complete pain. All my years of Chrome bookmarks/settings/etc. are associated with my personal account, so I want the browser itself to always be logged in with that identity. But I want to be logged into my business G Suite email account "by default" when I hit gmail.com, when I open Google Analytics, Drive etc. so I don't have to use the account picker a hundred times a day. It just doesn't seem possible. Argh. I wonder if Google employee accounts were to be considered business G Suite-like instead of consumer Gmail like, all these kinds of problems that constantly keep popping up for G Suite customers wouldn't be fixed overnight.
- blfr 8y ago
  The most straightforward solution is to create a separate Chrome user/profile for your work account. It's a great way to keep your private and organizational accounts completely separate. You can even sync all Chrome settings, extensions, and bookmars though the company account if they allow you to use your own devices. Unlike Firefox (major pain point btw), you can run Chrome with multiple profiles at once, each in a separate window.
  - Androider 8y ago
    But my workflow! https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/ That's a good suggestion, but I just don't need or want to maintain two sets of bookmarks, install each plugin twice, configure each setting in two places, etc. But I guess I'll have to... sigh.
    - omaranto 8y ago
      You could use the work profile you create exclusively for gmail and analytics, etc. That is, you could leave that profile pretty plain, not mainting bookmarks and plugins for it.
      - exolymph 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
esalman 8y ago
I was searching for apartments on zillow.com yesterday and a login pop up came up- which included another box giving me option to sign up with my Google addresses. Here's a screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/dYtg5u6.png https://i.imgur.com/dYtg5u6.png It did seem strange to me but I didn't bother because I was busy with the search. Now after reading this post this certainly does not seem strange anymore. Edit: Like OP, I never logged in to Chrome, only on gmail.com.
- strictnein 8y ago
  Saw that for the first time yesterday. Was really, really off-putting. Felt like the website I was visiting knew about all of my Google accounts. The Chrome Dev team is off the rails.
sosilkj 8y ago
If you have gmail, consider using an imap client. it might take a bit of tweaking the configuration, but i'd say it's worthwhile.
- yborg 8y ago
  They'll get rid of that loophole next. Monopolies doing monopoly things.
  - acct1771 8y ago
    RIP federation-friendly XMPP gChat
- Fnoord 8y ago
  I use my Gmail account as my secondary e-mail address and can confirm IMAP still works. I even use Office 365 e-mail as my tertiary e-mail address in an IMAP client. I have no idea which specific features I'm missing out; from my PoV IMAP4 is the standard and the rest is missing out on that with these proprietary web portals.
bubblethink 8y ago
Related: Google also tightened the link between gmail and youtube. Logging into gmail logs you into youtube too (which is quite pointless at least for me). This had been the case for a while, but earlier it was possible to manually delete youtube cookies, which would log you out of yt but keep you logged into gmail. They removed this workaround a few months ago. My solution to this was to use chrome only for gmail, and use chromium for everything else. This is poor-man's isolation, for what should be a browser feature (like firefox containers). Also, extensions like cookie-auto-delete don't work nearly as well on chrome as they do on firefox due to long standing bugs in chromium that are likely not getting resolved any time soon. More reason to switch to firefox eventually.
- vignesh_m 8y ago
  firefox containers work great for precisely this use case
newnewpdro 8y ago
You do know that Google is first and foremost an advertising company, right? One should expect this kind of fuckery when using software and services controlled by such an entity. There are alternatives, use and/or support them.
bdz 8y ago
ungoogled-chromium is what I use https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
- BayesStreet 8y ago
  Absolutely, takes a while to compile from source but it's worth it.
- fiiv 8y ago
  This is a great project. Contains many of the patches out there to de-fang a lot of these garbage integrations.
forrestthewoods 8y ago
Firefox Quantum is really, really good. I was a Chrome user for years but now use Firefox at home and work. A+++ would recommend.
nickthemagicman 8y ago
You can switch 'people' to have one browser for each account you want.
JoshMnem 8y ago
It started with an older version. Logging into Google automatically linked your Google account to the settings page. At least in the last version, clearing your private data (ctrl-shift-delete) no longer deleted Google cookies. To completely log out required manually digging into the advanced settings and then rebooting the browser. Google fundamentally doesn't respect user privacy, and people should use Firefox.
- beckler 8y ago
  I completely switched whenever FF quantum was released to stable. The experience is amazing. I will say I think chrome dev tools are better though.
  - JoshMnem 8y ago
    I tend to reach for Firefox's dev tools (or a node REPL) more often these days. Firefox has a much better CSS editor. I will run some dev tools in Chromium but avoid it for browsing. Once I saw that my account was linked to Chrome/Chromium without my permission, I cleared everything out of Chrome and stopped using it as a secondary browser. My secondary browser is now a separate Firefox profile: alias ff='firefox -ProfileManager -no-remote &'
    - danShumway 8y ago
      The big feature I'm waiting on in Firefox is live reloading/editing for scripts. It's a huge advantage to be able to pause a script in Chrome, edit the source code, and have those changes injected back into the script. Chrome will even rewind the stack if I edit a line behind where the script currently is. I use Firefox for all of my personal browsing and for some of my development. But I really miss that feature. Edit: that and making it easier to debug Node from Firefox. It's still kind of a pain in that area.
    - evolve2k 8y ago
      Which Node REPL would you recommend?
curiousDog 8y ago
This is just a grab at getting more user data. Where are all the Google employees who jump on any mention of Google to defend it with disclosures?
- srtjstjsj 8y ago
  How is it more data? This only affects people who choose to set up Google accounts and then log in to them.
  - curiousDog 8y ago
    What do you mean? I have a gmail account but don't want Google to have my browsing history. How is that so hard to understand?
rectang 8y ago
I run a dedicated site-specific browser instance of Chrome for Gmail. That way I don't need to stay logged into Google for any browsing I do in my main instance of Chrome.
EastSmith 8y ago
Horrible. Seems to not work with Google Inbox though.
amelius 8y ago
> This can't be a bug... can it? Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. (Hanlon's razor)
- explainplease 8y ago
  I imagine all the spooks and blackhats around the world utter a hearty chortle whenever they see someone cite that on the Internet. All they have to do for plausible deniability is plant a few obvious noob mistakes and, boom: that couldn't possibly be a backdoor, it's just a stupid mistake! The real question is how Hanlon's Razor applies to itself.
steve_taylor 8y ago
This has been around for a long time. You’ve only just noticed it. It’s time you accept that Chrome is spyware and start using Firefox instead.
kerng 8y ago
I stopped using Chrome entirely six months ago. Firefox it is!
SllX 8y ago
Google continues the war against their own users.
skybrian 8y ago
Maybe create a profile just for Gmail and other Google stuff? (I do this for Facebook.) Or multiple profiles if you also have a work account. For your main profile, don't log into Google at all.
mirimir 8y ago
Hey, can't log me into Chrome if I don't have it ;) Unless they also forced download and installation of Chrome. But nobody would tolerate that, right?
geuis 8y ago
So... I just updated Chrome and restarted it. I'm signed in to my gmail and gsuite accounts. Other than my gmail interface being annoyingly updated without asking me, I'm not being automatically signed into Chrome.
anonytrary 8y ago
It's not a bug -- it's asshole design.
Ajedi32 8y ago
So... why is this a problem? If I sign into my Google account, I already get signed into Maps, Drive, YouTube, Gmail, Calendar, etc. Why shouldn't Chrome be part of that list? I can perhaps understand there being some scenarios where this might not be desirable (depending on exactly how it's implemented), but for 99% of users this is a good thing, isn't it?
nostrademons 8y ago
I just switched to Brave yesterday for all my consumer surfing. (I still use Chrome for work because Amazon S3's "Open" link has a glitch in Brave.) Been quite happy so far - it's remarkable how clean and snappy the web is when there are no ads. The advantage over Firefox is that it's still Chromium, so all those websites that are Chrome-only or have rendering glitches in other browsers still work perfectly.
rmbeard 8y ago
Can you break this via the incognito mode? I have two gmail accounts one for work and one private, this is generally how I keep both open. Is this still going to be possible?
ravenstine 8y ago
It's time to start replacing Google in your life. Chrome -> Firefox Search -> DuckDuckGo Gmail -> ProtonMail (not strictly, but my recommendation) Docs -> OnlyOffice YouTube -> Use NewPipe if you have Android. There's BitChute but it has a lot of right-wing crap. Play Store -> F-Droid (if using Android) Google Drive -> Dropbox Google Maps -> HERE WeGo, or Mapquest Google News -> Yahoo! News
- fredsir 8y ago
  > YouTube I’ve been using YouTube via RSS feeds for a while. Requires no logins or anything to youtube, and I can still get the content only available there like Sixty Symbols and Numberphile. It’s great!
- notamicroshill 8y ago
  For a YouTube alternative I'd recommend hooktube, which is basically Startpage for YouTube. With an appropriately hardened browser it should be fine; if the Bitchute crowd is who Google is removing from YT, I'd say their doing something right for once. The Qanon crap is literally a 4chan prank.
psergeant 8y ago
I’ve been using Gmail, etc in Mailplane for quite a while. I do note that Gmail sign-in on my iPhone appears to have logged me into it on the YouTube app
bkfh 8y ago
Ever since it came out I started using Firefox' Containers for that purpose and they work like a charm. Maybe something similar exists for Chrome?
- akerro 8y ago
  The exact idea behind this unwanted feature in Google Chrome is the opposite idea of containers.
Animats 8y ago
Google is getting really pushy about logging in. Can you read any Google Doc file now without being logged in?
xte 8y ago
Personally I drop Chrome few months ago, tired by it's INVOLUTION. I also drop GMail about an year ago for a personal mail (which cost around 20 euros/year) and features standard IMAP and Roundcube instead of the monster WebUI that GMail have since few months. Also I'm in process to ditch Google contacts on Android (actually sync-ed one-way via Goobook/XML files since vdirsyncer seems unable to sync many contacts) switching to Radicale on home server and DAVDroid on mobile. For years I say to many ditching GMail&Google in general: you drop a working solution for another equally held by another company with a mission of making money. Now I have to say they were wright, I still drop a company for another but some others are less parasite than Google. Sorry for my poor English, not my mother-tongue...
barcoder 8y ago
I noticed similar on Android Chrome. I can't log out of my email in the browser
yolandaruiz 8y ago
People have been reporting the same for YouTube in the other direction. Logging off YouTube logs you off Chrome.
fiatjaf 8y ago
Thinking about switching and wanting a couple of recent, non-ideological opinions on how Firefox is better than Chrome? https://fiatjaf.alhur.es/entulho/firefox-vs-chrome.txt https://fiatjaf.alhur.es/entulho/firefox-vs-chrome.txt
zwaps 8y ago
Google will be doing everything to associate your behavior over all boundaries, device, profile, account, job and home as well as private stuff. This is just one of the many changes that explicitly show that google wants all data aggregated. You might get by for now by thus technique or that, but eventually Google will close those holes.
tjpnz 8y ago
Don't be evil?
icemelt8 8y ago
I see all the comments as if its a bad thing, is it a bad thing? I don't hate it.
ezoe 8y ago
I don't use Chrome or Chromium for years now. It's bloated, slow and eat a lot of precious CPU and memory resources.
gianpaj 8y ago
If you're on v68 and want to stop Chrome from upgrading add this on /etc/hosts: 0.0.0.0 tools.google.com H/T: https://stackoverflow.com/a/36183372/728287 https://stackoverflow.com/a/36183372/728287
_RPM 8y ago
Over the past 2 years I've slowly migrated myself away from Google. I do not use a Google account regularly anymore. I have private email, with my own domain. I use an iPhone. I use Firefox for browsing.
Mikho 8y ago
For long already I use many personas/users of Chrome simultaneously. It's very useful. Especially when you create a dedicated shortcut to a service/web-site on a desktop or even pin it to the taskbar. So I have direct Gmail icon on my taskbar that launches GMail as a standalone headless window and for a particular Chrome persona. Next is another GMail icon (it's possible to change icons if you need or turn on in W10 taskbar settings illustration of Chrome persona in the bottom right corner) with a different account via different Chrome user. They both work simultaneously. For social accounts I use one persona, for business another, for news and entertainment third. So every session very comfortably is saved and loaded only to a selected persona when I start the session. Since any link in any tab could be opened via a different persona/user it's not a problem to open a link from twitter or facebook in completely different persona where I'm not logged in for socials and basically incognito for the services.
ben_utzer 8y ago
It did not automatically login here.
swingline-747 8y ago
Does this apply to Chromium as well?
gergelypolonkai 8y ago
The part when you are logged out from GMail when you log out from Chrome might be a bug. Logging into Chrome when logging into GMail? Don’t think so.

532 points by ronilan 8y ago

shekelstien 8y ago

I hear that Brave and Proton mail are pretty good.

raverbashing 8y ago

It probably is not a bug Though "Chrome integration" with Google is pointless at best and an awful user experience. I made the mistake of logging in w/ Google on Chrome mobile. Resulting in all my bookmarks being synced on the phone (because of course I want my desktop bookmarks on my phone. Obviously. Thanks Google). This is a mistake I'm not doing again.

chris_mc 8y ago
Most people do want that, though. They literally want Google to sync everything for them. Makes sense to me, I don't see your POV to be super common, honestly, except maybe amongst the die hard tech people of hn and such.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  In mobile I want/have the bookmarks that make sense for mobile usage. I believe this applies to most people.
  - Ajedi32 8y ago
    Which is why there's a seperate folder in Google bookmarks for mobile bookmarks.

badrabbit 8y ago

Why on earth are you using chrome if you cared about that kind of stuff so much? No,it isn't a bug. It has always been that on android,using chrome browser or the youtube app meant that whatever google account was used in play store is also used to log you into google both on on chrome,yt,maps,etc... They just brought that feature to desktop,I suppose now you'll be logged into whatever google account last used? This includes payment info you inputted on the play store or anywhere else. What exactly is your concern,I can't imagine you'd expect boundaries and privacy to be a thing google would respect with any of their products. They say "don't be evil" but they're pretty wishy-washy and flexible as to what they consider evil. I'd equate complaining about privacy and boundaries with google and fb to complaining about the rude staff and unpleasant patrons in prison.

codezero 8y ago
A lot of people use chrome because it has the best security according to a lot of experts, including here on HN. It’s reasonable to complain about a drift in functionality that spans the web to native gap in my opinion.
- prepend 8y ago
  Really? Perhaps 10 years ago, but Chrome is pretty ok when it comes to security. This eval that is Google's top result in search [0] has them tied for 6 out of 9 (5.5) and Chromium is better for security. [0] https://www.expressvpn.com/blog/best-browsers-for-privacy/ https://www.expressvpn.com/blog/best-browsers-for-privacy/
  - konart 8y ago
    They avaluate both security and privacy in this article. The comment above was about security alone.
  - overcyn 8y ago
    From that link you posted... > Security: Google has always been known as a leader for browser security, and for good reason... All said, Google’s leading position in browser security is undisputed. 5/5

kilon 8y ago

Why is this a problem ?

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Data privacy and user tracking.
- akerro 8y ago
  Hey! You're using Google Chrome and Google services! Leave your expectation of privacy at the door.
vemv 8y ago
Now Google can (potentially) associate your browsing history with your identity, whereas before, any read of one's history would be anonymous.
- geggam 8y ago
  To think Google ( doubleclick ) and their competitors ( aggregate knowledge ) and others in that space arent already associating your browser history with your identity is a bit naive.
- i_am_nomad 8y ago
  In theory this is true, but Google almost certainly does that anyway using any number of alternate methods.
- konart 8y ago
  >Now Google can (potentially) They could do this earlier too. Just needed more recources and still with lesser precision.
- adiusmus 8y ago
  Potentially? They already have. Now they’re just linking things because they’re wanting easier and convenient access as well as “terms of service” clarity. I think it’s safe to say google etc don’t require cookies to track you. And they’ve already mapped out any secondary gmail accounts you have. And they have your complete browser history joined from all devices they’ve stitched into your shadow profile which you can’t delete or access. Incognito mode is only good for the little spy guy graphic. This is the 21st century - all activity is logged for future sale.

wellyeah 8y ago

Will it force me to login to Chrome even if I've never created a Chrome account?

ninjaranter 8y ago
Your google account is your Chrome account.

yuhong 8y ago

I wonder how does this exactly work technically. I am still working on the essay/overview BTW.

williamscales 8y ago

You didn't say why this is important to you so it comes off as a bit of a complaint for the sake of it. Are you concerned about your web history going to your Google account? You can turn that off. Don't believe that will really turn it off? Then don't believe that Chrome wasn't already logging your web history without your knowledge. Is it sad that respect for privacy has degraded this far? Absolutely. Is the merging of Google website logins with Google Chrome browser login a significant decrease in privacy? I believe it really isn't at this point. I've switched over to Firefox and it's quite fast and nice these days.

yuhong 8y ago
I had a separate Ask HN. Tracing some of the history, including Google Analytics that is mentioned in my essay/overview, is quite interesting.
- williamscales 8y ago
  It was a long essay, and I admit I skimmed it, but my main takeaway is: Google gon get ya, almost whatever you're doing.
  - yuhong 8y ago
    I am trying to trace the problems back to Larry/Sergey though. I am thinking of getting rid of the malware part to make it a bit shorter BTW.
RaleyField 8y ago
> to you so it comes off as a bit of a complaint for the sake of it. People like you really rise my blood pressure. No, it's not important to him/her, bad defaults[1] are important for everyone because they are incorrect design. The correct design is not to synchronize anything before obtaining informed consent. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern
- williamscales 8y ago

marssaxman 8y ago

This kind of chicanery is the reason I won't use Chrome for anything but browsing Facebook.

urda 8y ago
You don't even need that, install Firefox and use their container for Facebook: https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/facebook-container-extension/ https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/facebook-container-extensio...
- interfixus 8y ago
  Even better: Install Firefox and use nothing for Facebook.
  - cdancette 8y ago
    That's not an option for everyone
    - tobltobs 8y ago
      Your live depends on facebook?
      - jpindar 8y ago
        I love my relatives, and Facebook is how they communicate.
        ravenstine 8y ago
        Don't they all have email addresses? I'm not saying that you're entirely wrong, because I've used that rationalization for keeping Facebook in the past. What I do instead is just maintain an address book of everyone I know and send them an update on my life every once in a great while. It's much more fulfilling.

vemv 8y ago

A typical tendency in distasteful projects: couple everything, remove choice. Make it one-size-fits-all. Switching to Chromium.

nextos 8y ago
Chromium was previously downloading a binary blob on its own, which is a bit upsetting: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=786909 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=786909 https://lwn.net/Articles/648392/ https://lwn.net/Articles/648392/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9724409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9724409
- ChristianBundy 8y ago
  I've posted this a few days ago, but I switched from Chrome to Chromium to Firefox to GNOME Web (aka Epiphany) and it's everything I wanted: a stable and mature WebKit browser for all users (not just tech workers) with Firefox sync integration and no Google bullshit.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
aasasd 8y ago
Chromium has this behavior too, at least if you enabled the sync previously—and it's not new, it's been around for a long time, like a couple years or more.

Cockbrand 8y ago

This I can't reproduce with Chrome 69 on the Mac. I just logged into Gmail without being logged into Chrome. Or did I misunderstand something here?

phyller 8y ago

I thought I had this experience years ago, I'm surprised this is only happening now. I use an email app (just regular Mail on the mac) to access my Gmail. Your email is stored and synced locally so it is accessible offline, and you don't get these shenanigans. Also I use Firefox. But let's be honest, even if you aren't logged in, and aren't using Chrome, at this point if Google is not recognizing you it is only because they are pretending not to. I'd bet they have a pretty good record of my internet activity.

zitterbewegung 8y ago
What they mean is to log into the sync feature which is part of Chrome .

ComputerGuru 8y ago

This happened to me yesterday on Windows too, to add another datapoint to your sample set.

lurker456 8y ago

The cynic in me thinks this is in anticipation of GDPR related challenges. Users that accepted a TOS are easier to track (at least, it's easier to mount a legal argument that some tracking and profile linking is ok) compared to users that never accepted anything at all. next up: push for new standards that favor chrome over other browsers.

hegz 8y ago
The gdpr agreement form on websites usually requires you to enable 3rd party scripts and cookies otherwise you get hit with endless popups about it. Someone should make a browser extension that automatically denies every gdpr popup.
- noisem4ker 8y ago
  https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ This one aims to automatically close all such popups. It doesn't "deny" permissions, but that's what content blockers such as uMatrix are for.

fareesh 8y ago

This causes a few other problems. For example I use Hangouts Chat (chat.google.com) on my Google Apps account, and I also have a personal gmail. Ever since the change I have to log out from my personal gmail to use Hangouts Chat, because it is looking at my Chrome account and telling me that I'm not part of the organization. I can't switch to the Google Apps account at all.

ganoushoreilly 8y ago
This is why setting up user profiles is handy in chrome. Keep one for work, one for home.
- 4ad 8y ago
  But being logged into your personal Hangouts and using the work Chrome at the same time does not seem to work anymore.
- the_duke 8y ago
  This is why it's handy to just use Firefox.
  - tokyodude 8y ago
    firefox's multiple profile support is crap. I actually do want multiple profiles that do things like sync passwords, bookmarks, extensions, themes across machines per profile. AFAIK firefox can't run multiple profiles at once
    - asadotzler 8y ago
      You can run multiple profiles at once in Firefox. I've been doing this for the better part of two decades with Mozilla browsers. You just need to add the no-remote option to your launcher.
    - rocky1138 8y ago
      `firefox -P`

guptarohit 8y ago

Not just Gmail, but I got logged out from other websites as well! [chrome 69, linux, ubuntu 16.04]

negutron 8y ago

Someone else said 'your chrome account IS your google account' They are quite right. Google created an identifier that makes email as an id obsolete, and its called GAIA_ID. You can google it. Basically all of their services are keyed off on their universal gmail gaia_id but they planned on using this even beyond gmail but as a 'universal identifier' to track everyone on every service that interacts with google, such as tying the gaia_id to the apple id, facebook id You guys really don't get it do you? Google is oceania, it's five eyes / cia-nato and they wanted to have a 'global identifier' to identify everyone on the planet. If they haven't already achieved it (likely they have) then it's something they're aiming for. google is a technofascist information monopoly, and given that they've been cenosring people politically on youtube by demonetizing and deplatforming them, that should give you pause, in case your opinons 'just so happen to evolve with new information that disagrees with the reigning silicon valley biased cult of opinion called 'the establishment'' sorry I went political here, but software is becoming VERY political. Things in firefox break more and more every day, forcing you to use chrome. FF widevine support breaks all the time, oops there goes NETFLIX and HULU and AMAZON on your linux platform... this kind of thing. Google is widevine, so you better be politically aligned with google or else....no DRM check for you, no video for your customers

ebikelaw 8y ago
Only on Hacker News is the fact that a database has a primary key for user accounts evidence of a global conspiracy against humanity. Here's some bad news for you: literally every company with a website and user accounts has the same scheme.

spookyahell 8y ago

You are not essentially logging into Chrome, well yes you are but only for local purposes and that's not so bad... the link is only local, it will not be syncing any data without your consent, it used to mean that.. and Google DID do very poorly presenting this version of their browser (proven by other posts here)

vbezhenar 8y ago

I can confirm on Windows, exactly the same behavior. I guess, it's time to start using Chrome account, never needed it, but whatever.

duxup 8y ago

I wish I could just have multiple Chrome installs segregated from each other for different purposes. I used to use Firefox for work and chrome for personal stuff. My new employer uses Google's business apps so it is easiest in Chrome....but that knocks out my two browsers at once system. Often I'll need something I saved to drive (sample code, doc, something) or bookmarked in my personal account that suddenly was relevant to work.... swapping logins is a pain....

danmg 8y ago
Use the --profile option
- duxup 8y ago
  Your talking about just multiple logins like Google allows right? I still have to switch back and forth and would rather keep both open.
  - joshuamorton 8y ago
    You can have them open in different chrome windows simultaneously. I keep one widow with my personal login and another with my work account and it works fine.
    - duxup 8y ago
      Thanks I'll give it a try again.
qalmakka 8y ago
You are fundamentally describing Firefox Containers. They are awesome and they work just like that, allowing you to have multiple independent sets of cookies for each context you need.
- explainplease 8y ago
  That sounds great! But if Mozilla follows the pattern they have set, they will discontinue that extension, just like they dumped Tab Groups, etc. So why should users invest in using it and building workflows around it, when it's probably just another rug to be ripped out from under them?

r721 8y ago

"Google calls the feature "Identity consistency between browser and cookie jar" and a Chrome representative on the official Google Chrome Help Forum confirmed that this is the intended behavior. >This is an intended behaviour if you are using the same Google Account for your Gmail and Chrome. If yes, you'll be signed out of Chrome when you signed out of Gmail account. ... Good news is that it is possible currently to disable the feature. Doing to breaks the link between the Google Account in Chrome that is used to sync data and Google accounts on Internet sites. Note: Google may remove experimental flags like the one described below at any time. As long as it turns up when you run the steps below it is supported. Here is what you need to do: 1. Load chrome://flags/#account-consistency in the browser's address bar. Google Chrome should display the flag Identity consistency between browser and cookie jar at the top. 2. Set the flag to disabled with a click on the menu and selecting disabled from the context menu. 3. Restart the Chrome browser. Chrome breaks the link between the Google account in Chrome used to sync data and Google accounts that you sign in using the browser on Google sites." https://www.ghacks.net/2018/09/08/disable-the-sign-out-link-between-chrome-gmail-and-other-google-services/ https://www.ghacks.net/2018/09/08/disable-the-sign-out-link-...

ReverseCold 8y ago
Alternatively just get Firefox, use https://ffprofile.com/ https://ffprofile.com/ once, and stop dealing with Chrome. Ta-da, no more spyware.
- colordrops 8y ago
  Yes, this move is a deal breaker. Defaults matter, so I'm switching to Firefox.
  - cm2187 8y ago
    I just did the same. After having used chrome since pretty much version 1.
- dagenix 8y ago
  Calling that behavior "spyware" is a bit of a stretch.

dgudkov 8y ago

To make it worse, the Chrome account is always user id = 0. You can't have other account logged in first, then log into Chrome -- it will kick out the first account. This breaks all bookmarks that use particular user, i.e. contain /u/1 or /u/2. What a mess.

superkuh 8y ago

If it's a problem you should stop using both gmail and Chrome. Don't support companies that are anti-user.

rosser 8y ago
My choice to use gmail was made by my employer. I like my job. How am I supposed to pass, again?
- kstrauser 8y ago
  Are you sure? My employer uses gmail, which I access via Mail.app exclusively. I bet I open the web app maybe once or twice a year, usually by clicking a link in a calendar event. It's perfectly possibly to use gmail-the-service without using gmail-the-app.
  - rosser 8y ago
    I find Mail.app to have a terrible UX, but I did try it, thanks. My standing solution is to use one browser to log into big-G services, another to log into FB, and a third for everything else.
    - epicide 8y ago
      If you have a "zero inbox" type approach, I find Mail.app to be serviceable, but to each their own. There are a few others to try. I used Airmail a few years ago. However, be on the lookout for "native" email clients that are really just web gmail wrappers.
      - rosser 8y ago
        I've been curious about Airmail, but I'm tiring of OSX, to the point that I'm leaning towards switching back to Linux.
        8y ago

a13n 8y ago

You could use Missive to avoid this. It'd let you keep using your gmail account without having to ever log in to gmail in Chrome.

Havoc 8y ago

huh...so that's why chrome suddenly wants to sync my bookmarks to my gmail username. Firefox it is then. This is a little too shady for my liking.

Androider 8y ago

Once again G Suite customers get the shaft. I have a personal Gmail account, and a business G Suite account, and this change makes working with the two accounts a complete pain. All my years of Chrome bookmarks/settings/etc. are associated with my personal account, so I want the browser itself to always be logged in with that identity. But I want to be logged into my business G Suite email account "by default" when I hit gmail.com, when I open Google Analytics, Drive etc. so I don't have to use the account picker a hundred times a day. It just doesn't seem possible. Argh. I wonder if Google employee accounts were to be considered business G Suite-like instead of consumer Gmail like, all these kinds of problems that constantly keep popping up for G Suite customers wouldn't be fixed overnight.

blfr 8y ago
The most straightforward solution is to create a separate Chrome user/profile for your work account. It's a great way to keep your private and organizational accounts completely separate. You can even sync all Chrome settings, extensions, and bookmars though the company account if they allow you to use your own devices. Unlike Firefox (major pain point btw), you can run Chrome with multiple profiles at once, each in a separate window.
- Androider 8y ago
  But my workflow! https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/ That's a good suggestion, but I just don't need or want to maintain two sets of bookmarks, install each plugin twice, configure each setting in two places, etc. But I guess I'll have to... sigh.
  - omaranto 8y ago
    You could use the work profile you create exclusively for gmail and analytics, etc. That is, you could leave that profile pretty plain, not mainting bookmarks and plugins for it.
    - exolymph 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

esalman 8y ago

I was searching for apartments on zillow.com yesterday and a login pop up came up- which included another box giving me option to sign up with my Google addresses. Here's a screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/dYtg5u6.png https://i.imgur.com/dYtg5u6.png It did seem strange to me but I didn't bother because I was busy with the search. Now after reading this post this certainly does not seem strange anymore. Edit: Like OP, I never logged in to Chrome, only on gmail.com.

strictnein 8y ago
Saw that for the first time yesterday. Was really, really off-putting. Felt like the website I was visiting knew about all of my Google accounts. The Chrome Dev team is off the rails.

sosilkj 8y ago

If you have gmail, consider using an imap client. it might take a bit of tweaking the configuration, but i'd say it's worthwhile.

yborg 8y ago
They'll get rid of that loophole next. Monopolies doing monopoly things.
- acct1771 8y ago
  RIP federation-friendly XMPP gChat
Fnoord 8y ago
I use my Gmail account as my secondary e-mail address and can confirm IMAP still works. I even use Office 365 e-mail as my tertiary e-mail address in an IMAP client. I have no idea which specific features I'm missing out; from my PoV IMAP4 is the standard and the rest is missing out on that with these proprietary web portals.

bubblethink 8y ago

Related: Google also tightened the link between gmail and youtube. Logging into gmail logs you into youtube too (which is quite pointless at least for me). This had been the case for a while, but earlier it was possible to manually delete youtube cookies, which would log you out of yt but keep you logged into gmail. They removed this workaround a few months ago. My solution to this was to use chrome only for gmail, and use chromium for everything else. This is poor-man's isolation, for what should be a browser feature (like firefox containers). Also, extensions like cookie-auto-delete don't work nearly as well on chrome as they do on firefox due to long standing bugs in chromium that are likely not getting resolved any time soon. More reason to switch to firefox eventually.

vignesh_m 8y ago
firefox containers work great for precisely this use case

newnewpdro 8y ago

You do know that Google is first and foremost an advertising company, right? One should expect this kind of fuckery when using software and services controlled by such an entity. There are alternatives, use and/or support them.

bdz 8y ago

ungoogled-chromium is what I use https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium

BayesStreet 8y ago
Absolutely, takes a while to compile from source but it's worth it.
fiiv 8y ago
This is a great project. Contains many of the patches out there to de-fang a lot of these garbage integrations.

forrestthewoods 8y ago

Firefox Quantum is really, really good. I was a Chrome user for years but now use Firefox at home and work. A+++ would recommend.

nickthemagicman 8y ago

You can switch 'people' to have one browser for each account you want.

JoshMnem 8y ago

It started with an older version. Logging into Google automatically linked your Google account to the settings page. At least in the last version, clearing your private data (ctrl-shift-delete) no longer deleted Google cookies. To completely log out required manually digging into the advanced settings and then rebooting the browser. Google fundamentally doesn't respect user privacy, and people should use Firefox.

beckler 8y ago
I completely switched whenever FF quantum was released to stable. The experience is amazing. I will say I think chrome dev tools are better though.
- JoshMnem 8y ago
  I tend to reach for Firefox's dev tools (or a node REPL) more often these days. Firefox has a much better CSS editor. I will run some dev tools in Chromium but avoid it for browsing. Once I saw that my account was linked to Chrome/Chromium without my permission, I cleared everything out of Chrome and stopped using it as a secondary browser. My secondary browser is now a separate Firefox profile: alias ff='firefox -ProfileManager -no-remote &'
  - danShumway 8y ago
    The big feature I'm waiting on in Firefox is live reloading/editing for scripts. It's a huge advantage to be able to pause a script in Chrome, edit the source code, and have those changes injected back into the script. Chrome will even rewind the stack if I edit a line behind where the script currently is. I use Firefox for all of my personal browsing and for some of my development. But I really miss that feature. Edit: that and making it easier to debug Node from Firefox. It's still kind of a pain in that area.
  - evolve2k 8y ago
    Which Node REPL would you recommend?

curiousDog 8y ago

This is just a grab at getting more user data. Where are all the Google employees who jump on any mention of Google to defend it with disclosures?

srtjstjsj 8y ago
How is it more data? This only affects people who choose to set up Google accounts and then log in to them.
- curiousDog 8y ago
  What do you mean? I have a gmail account but don't want Google to have my browsing history. How is that so hard to understand?

rectang 8y ago

I run a dedicated site-specific browser instance of Chrome for Gmail. That way I don't need to stay logged into Google for any browsing I do in my main instance of Chrome.

EastSmith 8y ago

Horrible. Seems to not work with Google Inbox though.

amelius 8y ago

> This can't be a bug... can it? Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. (Hanlon's razor)

explainplease 8y ago
I imagine all the spooks and blackhats around the world utter a hearty chortle whenever they see someone cite that on the Internet. All they have to do for plausible deniability is plant a few obvious noob mistakes and, boom: that couldn't possibly be a backdoor, it's just a stupid mistake! The real question is how Hanlon's Razor applies to itself.

steve_taylor 8y ago

This has been around for a long time. You’ve only just noticed it. It’s time you accept that Chrome is spyware and start using Firefox instead.

kerng 8y ago

I stopped using Chrome entirely six months ago. Firefox it is!

SllX 8y ago

Google continues the war against their own users.

skybrian 8y ago

Maybe create a profile just for Gmail and other Google stuff? (I do this for Facebook.) Or multiple profiles if you also have a work account. For your main profile, don't log into Google at all.

mirimir 8y ago

Hey, can't log me into Chrome if I don't have it ;) Unless they also forced download and installation of Chrome. But nobody would tolerate that, right?

geuis 8y ago

So... I just updated Chrome and restarted it. I'm signed in to my gmail and gsuite accounts. Other than my gmail interface being annoyingly updated without asking me, I'm not being automatically signed into Chrome.

anonytrary 8y ago

It's not a bug -- it's asshole design.

Ajedi32 8y ago

So... why is this a problem? If I sign into my Google account, I already get signed into Maps, Drive, YouTube, Gmail, Calendar, etc. Why shouldn't Chrome be part of that list? I can perhaps understand there being some scenarios where this might not be desirable (depending on exactly how it's implemented), but for 99% of users this is a good thing, isn't it?

nostrademons 8y ago

I just switched to Brave yesterday for all my consumer surfing. (I still use Chrome for work because Amazon S3's "Open" link has a glitch in Brave.) Been quite happy so far - it's remarkable how clean and snappy the web is when there are no ads. The advantage over Firefox is that it's still Chromium, so all those websites that are Chrome-only or have rendering glitches in other browsers still work perfectly.

rmbeard 8y ago

Can you break this via the incognito mode? I have two gmail accounts one for work and one private, this is generally how I keep both open. Is this still going to be possible?

ravenstine 8y ago

It's time to start replacing Google in your life. Chrome -> Firefox Search -> DuckDuckGo Gmail -> ProtonMail (not strictly, but my recommendation) Docs -> OnlyOffice YouTube -> Use NewPipe if you have Android. There's BitChute but it has a lot of right-wing crap. Play Store -> F-Droid (if using Android) Google Drive -> Dropbox Google Maps -> HERE WeGo, or Mapquest Google News -> Yahoo! News

fredsir 8y ago
> YouTube I’ve been using YouTube via RSS feeds for a while. Requires no logins or anything to youtube, and I can still get the content only available there like Sixty Symbols and Numberphile. It’s great!
notamicroshill 8y ago
For a YouTube alternative I'd recommend hooktube, which is basically Startpage for YouTube. With an appropriately hardened browser it should be fine; if the Bitchute crowd is who Google is removing from YT, I'd say their doing something right for once. The Qanon crap is literally a 4chan prank.

psergeant 8y ago

I’ve been using Gmail, etc in Mailplane for quite a while. I do note that Gmail sign-in on my iPhone appears to have logged me into it on the YouTube app

bkfh 8y ago

Ever since it came out I started using Firefox' Containers for that purpose and they work like a charm. Maybe something similar exists for Chrome?

akerro 8y ago
The exact idea behind this unwanted feature in Google Chrome is the opposite idea of containers.

Animats 8y ago

Google is getting really pushy about logging in. Can you read any Google Doc file now without being logged in?

xte 8y ago

Personally I drop Chrome few months ago, tired by it's INVOLUTION. I also drop GMail about an year ago for a personal mail (which cost around 20 euros/year) and features standard IMAP and Roundcube instead of the monster WebUI that GMail have since few months. Also I'm in process to ditch Google contacts on Android (actually sync-ed one-way via Goobook/XML files since vdirsyncer seems unable to sync many contacts) switching to Radicale on home server and DAVDroid on mobile. For years I say to many ditching GMail&Google in general: you drop a working solution for another equally held by another company with a mission of making money. Now I have to say they were wright, I still drop a company for another but some others are less parasite than Google. Sorry for my poor English, not my mother-tongue...

barcoder 8y ago

I noticed similar on Android Chrome. I can't log out of my email in the browser

yolandaruiz 8y ago

People have been reporting the same for YouTube in the other direction. Logging off YouTube logs you off Chrome.

fiatjaf 8y ago

Thinking about switching and wanting a couple of recent, non-ideological opinions on how Firefox is better than Chrome? https://fiatjaf.alhur.es/entulho/firefox-vs-chrome.txt https://fiatjaf.alhur.es/entulho/firefox-vs-chrome.txt

zwaps 8y ago

Google will be doing everything to associate your behavior over all boundaries, device, profile, account, job and home as well as private stuff. This is just one of the many changes that explicitly show that google wants all data aggregated. You might get by for now by thus technique or that, but eventually Google will close those holes.

tjpnz 8y ago

Don't be evil?

icemelt8 8y ago

I see all the comments as if its a bad thing, is it a bad thing? I don't hate it.

ezoe 8y ago

I don't use Chrome or Chromium for years now. It's bloated, slow and eat a lot of precious CPU and memory resources.

gianpaj 8y ago

If you're on v68 and want to stop Chrome from upgrading add this on /etc/hosts: 0.0.0.0 tools.google.com H/T: https://stackoverflow.com/a/36183372/728287 https://stackoverflow.com/a/36183372/728287

_RPM 8y ago

Over the past 2 years I've slowly migrated myself away from Google. I do not use a Google account regularly anymore. I have private email, with my own domain. I use an iPhone. I use Firefox for browsing.

Mikho 8y ago

For long already I use many personas/users of Chrome simultaneously. It's very useful. Especially when you create a dedicated shortcut to a service/web-site on a desktop or even pin it to the taskbar. So I have direct Gmail icon on my taskbar that launches GMail as a standalone headless window and for a particular Chrome persona. Next is another GMail icon (it's possible to change icons if you need or turn on in W10 taskbar settings illustration of Chrome persona in the bottom right corner) with a different account via different Chrome user. They both work simultaneously. For social accounts I use one persona, for business another, for news and entertainment third. So every session very comfortably is saved and loaded only to a selected persona when I start the session. Since any link in any tab could be opened via a different persona/user it's not a problem to open a link from twitter or facebook in completely different persona where I'm not logged in for socials and basically incognito for the services.

ben_utzer 8y ago

It did not automatically login here.

swingline-747 8y ago

Does this apply to Chromium as well?

gergelypolonkai 8y ago

The part when you are logged out from GMail when you log out from Chrome might be a bug. Logging into Chrome when logging into GMail? Don’t think so.