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

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91–100 of 332 posts

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

#91
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

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.

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

#92
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

#93
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the cheapest kind of hand-wavy, recriminatory internet "discourse". It's shallow, content-free, and leaves you feeling like the good guy for talking shit about other people's choices, which you've examined on exactly one axis. I'm glad for you that you've found such a clear moral compass, but the world is, in my experience, rather subtle and complex.

I didn't mean to come across as "talking shit". I think almost all people (myself included) would prioritize their job over software ethics if forced into that situation. But, what do you use for personal email? To avoid these kinds of issues I've been running my own mailserver for about 5 years.

Self-hosted.

The gmail address listed on my HN profile is for listing on public profiles.

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

#94
post #50

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 rel…

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.

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

#96

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…

add a profile? I have 6 chrome profiles. One for personal, business, Facebook, Twitter, Chromium, Other. 3 of those are associate with different google accounts

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

#97

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…

[deleted]

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

#98
post #92
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

I've been curious about Airmail, but I'm tiring of OSX, to the point that I'm leaning towards switching back to Linux.

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

#99
post #87

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…

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…

But my workflow! 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.

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

#100
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.
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