4 ms·

You assume that the feature will result in some net benefit for Google (at some potential expanse to users/public) but there's no such guarantee. Historically,

You assume that the feature will result in some net benefit for Google (at some potential expanse to users/public) but there's no such guarantee. Historically, the great Google products are made from scratch (or bought early) and stand by themselves. Their not-so-good products or features are the result of some elaborate corporate thinking that comes out under phrases like "Identity consistency between browser and cookie jar". So, while they (may) think it tightens the lock-in, it (may) actually end up doing the opposite and be a disservice to everyone.

srtjstjsj 8y ago
Why is it harmful to log in once to both apps that use the same account in the same browser? Gmail and Calendar already share the same login. Is that hurting anyone?
- danShumway 8y ago
  Multiple users may use the same browser/devices but different Gmail accounts. Even ignoring the (many) privacy implications, this causes problems for syncing across devices. Lets say I share a computer with my partner, but we have separate phones. Should I need to check which Gmail account is logged in before bookmarking something? Why can't we share a Chrome profile across those 3 devices while still maintaining separate Gmail accounts?
  - pdonis 8y ago
    If you share a computer with someone else, each of you should have your own user accounts. Then each user account will have its own profile data, including which accounts are logged in.
    - Spivak 8y ago
      Not sure why you're being so harshly downvoted, Chromium and derivatives have pretty solid profile switching. Doing this would actually be less work than signing out/in to other accounts.
      - danShumway 8y ago
        It doesn't solve the problem I brought up - I was asking how to avoid switching profiles if I was sharing one between multiple people. GP's suggestion was to switch profiles. Suppose I and my partner want to be able to bookmark something and have it show up on both of our phones. Is there a way to do that without sharing a Gmail account? That seems like a pretty common use case to me that was pretty easy to do before Chrome tied them together. On Firefox, that use case would be trivial. You just sign all your browsers into one account and then use the web normally like you've always done.
        pdonis 8y ago
        > GP's suggestion was to switch profiles. No, my suggestion was to create separate user accounts on the shared computer for each person--i.e., each person logs in to the computer with their own user account. That would make all of the website logins separate for each user, without anyone having to switch profiles in their browser. However, I apparently misunderstood your problem; you don't want everything separate, you just want gmail separate while still sharing Chrome profiles. You're right that my suggestion won't solve that problem.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Multiple users may use the same browser/devices but different Gmail accounts. Why would they use the same browser logon. Sure they might use the same be, sure, they might even not use a different user account on the computer, but your are suggesting that they would use the same Google account to log into the browser yet different Google Accounts to log into Google. That seems improbable, and likely to have unintended privacy implication that account consistency would mitigate rather than exacerbate.
    - pjc50 8y ago
      The most likely approach there is not to "log into the browser" at all. I don't, I have separate profiles on every system.
    - danShumway 8y ago
      My parents share computer accounts; heck, they even share bank accounts. It is not implausible to me that you'd want to have separate emails, but also want all of your bookmarks to sync across multiple devices regardless of who they belong to. The privacy implications here are in regards to stuff like Google stripping search terms off of urls from competing services. Caring about that doesn't mean you will necessarily care about hiding search history from your partner. Even with syncing passwords -- both of my parents know how to log into each other's Gmail accounts. Anecdotally, that is relatively common for older generations; sometimes they'll even ask each other to check their email if a computer isn't nearby. If you have sync turned on in that scenario, you are going to end up with bookmarks and passwords that randomly disappear depending on who was logged into what when they were added. And sure, you can get around that by just not using sync. The privacy implications are still worse in that situation, because you no longer have a choice not to log into Chrome. But even if you don't care about that, it still seems like a strict downgrade in functionality. You lose the ability to sync bookmarks between computers and you lose the ability to easily share logins. The response to, "hey, you made this feature less useful!" probably shouldn't be, "well, but you won't notice if you just stop using it." It's hard to make that sound like an upgrade.
- chris_wot 8y ago
  Because a lot of us have a work Gmail account and a personal Gmail account.
  - Spivak 8y ago
    Sure, and this would just result in two separate profiles in Chrome.
    - chris_wot 8y ago
      I don't want to be switching between profiles. I want to be able to see my personal Gmail and my work Gmail, and only sync up my work profile. Or alternatively, I don't want to sync.
- laggyluke 8y ago
  > Is that hurting anyone? It's actually hurting me: I'd like to be able to sign into YouTube on an untrusted device without signing into Gmail at the same time.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - kkarakk 8y ago
    why sign into an untrusted device in any way without two factor authentication and incognito mode enabled?

srtjstjsj 8y ago

Why is it harmful to log in once to both apps that use the same account in the same browser? Gmail and Calendar already share the same login. Is that hurting anyone?

danShumway 8y ago
Multiple users may use the same browser/devices but different Gmail accounts. Even ignoring the (many) privacy implications, this causes problems for syncing across devices. Lets say I share a computer with my partner, but we have separate phones. Should I need to check which Gmail account is logged in before bookmarking something? Why can't we share a Chrome profile across those 3 devices while still maintaining separate Gmail accounts?
- pdonis 8y ago
  If you share a computer with someone else, each of you should have your own user accounts. Then each user account will have its own profile data, including which accounts are logged in.
  - Spivak 8y ago
    Not sure why you're being so harshly downvoted, Chromium and derivatives have pretty solid profile switching. Doing this would actually be less work than signing out/in to other accounts.
    - danShumway 8y ago
      It doesn't solve the problem I brought up - I was asking how to avoid switching profiles if I was sharing one between multiple people. GP's suggestion was to switch profiles. Suppose I and my partner want to be able to bookmark something and have it show up on both of our phones. Is there a way to do that without sharing a Gmail account? That seems like a pretty common use case to me that was pretty easy to do before Chrome tied them together. On Firefox, that use case would be trivial. You just sign all your browsers into one account and then use the web normally like you've always done.
      - pdonis 8y ago
        > GP's suggestion was to switch profiles. No, my suggestion was to create separate user accounts on the shared computer for each person--i.e., each person logs in to the computer with their own user account. That would make all of the website logins separate for each user, without anyone having to switch profiles in their browser. However, I apparently misunderstood your problem; you don't want everything separate, you just want gmail separate while still sharing Chrome profiles. You're right that my suggestion won't solve that problem.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Multiple users may use the same browser/devices but different Gmail accounts. Why would they use the same browser logon. Sure they might use the same be, sure, they might even not use a different user account on the computer, but your are suggesting that they would use the same Google account to log into the browser yet different Google Accounts to log into Google. That seems improbable, and likely to have unintended privacy implication that account consistency would mitigate rather than exacerbate.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    The most likely approach there is not to "log into the browser" at all. I don't, I have separate profiles on every system.
  - danShumway 8y ago
    My parents share computer accounts; heck, they even share bank accounts. It is not implausible to me that you'd want to have separate emails, but also want all of your bookmarks to sync across multiple devices regardless of who they belong to. The privacy implications here are in regards to stuff like Google stripping search terms off of urls from competing services. Caring about that doesn't mean you will necessarily care about hiding search history from your partner. Even with syncing passwords -- both of my parents know how to log into each other's Gmail accounts. Anecdotally, that is relatively common for older generations; sometimes they'll even ask each other to check their email if a computer isn't nearby. If you have sync turned on in that scenario, you are going to end up with bookmarks and passwords that randomly disappear depending on who was logged into what when they were added. And sure, you can get around that by just not using sync. The privacy implications are still worse in that situation, because you no longer have a choice not to log into Chrome. But even if you don't care about that, it still seems like a strict downgrade in functionality. You lose the ability to sync bookmarks between computers and you lose the ability to easily share logins. The response to, "hey, you made this feature less useful!" probably shouldn't be, "well, but you won't notice if you just stop using it." It's hard to make that sound like an upgrade.
chris_wot 8y ago
Because a lot of us have a work Gmail account and a personal Gmail account.
- Spivak 8y ago
  Sure, and this would just result in two separate profiles in Chrome.
  - chris_wot 8y ago
    I don't want to be switching between profiles. I want to be able to see my personal Gmail and my work Gmail, and only sync up my work profile. Or alternatively, I don't want to sync.
laggyluke 8y ago
> Is that hurting anyone? It's actually hurting me: I'd like to be able to sign into YouTube on an untrusted device without signing into Gmail at the same time.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- kkarakk 8y ago
  why sign into an untrusted device in any way without two factor authentication and incognito mode enabled?