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Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

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Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#341

Post by bayindirh »

RossM wrote: post #295
TekMol wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to be logged in in my browser at all Same here. Why does Chrome log you in in the first place? I mean I know it from the companies perspective of course. They want to consolidate as much data about you as possible. And tie you into their ecosystem. But what is the user facing benefit? Syncing your bookmarks across devices?

> But what is the user facing benefit? Syncing bookmarks, recently opened tabs, passwords, autofill(?). These are genuine benefits when you're working with laptops, desktops, phones and tablets. Whether they're worth the cost of data mining is another matter of course.

While I understand and agree that they're benefits for the user, its interpretation and decision shall be made by the users themselves.

If the company supplying these features are forcefully making these decisions on behalf of me, I can assume that there are other intentions and motivations for providing these services to me for "free".

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#342

Post by feanaro »

statictype wrote: post #180
tptacek wrote: post #2

Like Eric Law[1], I felt like while there were some rough spots in the UX for the Chrome login and sync features, the issue was very overblown (I'd feel very differently if sync had been enabled automatically). I don't have much more to say than Law does --- except maybe that when your arch-competitor is speaking out on your behalf , maybe the narrative has gone a little haywire. I figured Google would do something c…

The sync thing was overblown. The cookies thing was a bit more concerning to me. Not so much from a privacy angle but from more of a 'Chrome has lots its way' angle. A lot of our software's more complex interfaces are Chrome-first since its faster to develop - yesterday was the first time I made a serious consideration to change that approach. Glad to see they are listening to user feedback and reacting quickly.

I disagree the sync thing was overblown. A website's cookies and the internal functionality of the browser are conceptually very different and (up to now) well differentiated concepts. Mixing them up and blurring the lines between them is just a portal to confusion of the average user, who is already confused enough.

I fear that changes like this will eventually make it impossible to effectively explain to an average user even the basics of how the web works.

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#343

Post by [deleted] »

cm2187 wrote: post #275

Won’t change my mind and will stick to Firefox after having switched because of this. First I don’t want to be logged in in my browser at all. Second, and probably more important, software is about trust. Even for an open source project, no one has the time to review millions of lines of code. So unfortunately one has to rely on what one believes is the behavior of the authors of the software. And what google did is…

[deleted]

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#344

Post by nailer »

StanAngeloff wrote: post #336
cm2187 wrote: post #275

Won’t change my mind and will stick to Firefox after having switched because of this. First I don’t want to be logged in in my browser at all. Second, and probably more important, software is about trust. Even for an open source project, no one has the time to review millions of lines of code. So unfortunately one has to rely on what one believes is the behavior of the authors of the software. And what google did is…

This same change to Google Chrome forced me to go to Firefox, too. After about a week of pain, I'm now much more comfortable about my choice. I do have a Firefox account which syncs up my passwords, history, etc. so in a sense I'm still logged into the browser. I do trust Mozilla more than I do Google with my personal data, though.

Mozilla don't have access to your data even with Sync turned on! They've confirmed it multiple times this week.

One more reason to go with Firefox.

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#345

Post by Aaargh20318 »

RossM wrote: post #295
TekMol wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to be logged in in my browser at all Same here. Why does Chrome log you in in the first place? I mean I know it from the companies perspective of course. They want to consolidate as much data about you as possible. And tie you into their ecosystem. But what is the user facing benefit? Syncing your bookmarks across devices?

> But what is the user facing benefit? Syncing bookmarks, recently opened tabs, passwords, autofill(?). These are genuine benefits when you're working with laptops, desktops, phones and tablets. Whether they're worth the cost of data mining is another matter of course.

IMO syncing the state of your user account between devices is the responsibility of the OS, not the browser.

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#346

Post by feanaro »

pilif wrote: post #232
statictype wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sync thing was overblown. The cookies thing was a bit more concerning to me. Not so much from a privacy angle but from more of a 'Chrome has lots its way' angle. A lot of our software's more complex interfaces are Chrome-first since its faster to develop - yesterday was the first time I made a serious consideration to change that approach. Glad to see they are listening to user feedback and reacting quickly.

The cookies thing could be seen as a bug: the button does remove the cookies, but because your google sign in state is now tied to the browser sign in state, new cookies will immediately be set. To fix this, the “remove cookies” button would also have to sign you out of chrome which would also feel weird from a UX perspective. All in all I think this was just released a bit early before all UX edge cases could be tac…

> The cookies thing could be seen as a bug: the button does remove the cookies, but because your google sign in state is now tied to the browser sign in state, new cookies will immediately be set.

Then maybe tying the Google state to the browser state was a mistake and should be reverted?

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#347

Post by dandare »

Arn_Thor wrote: post #269
dandare wrote: post #266

> When you sign out, either directly from Chrome or from any Google website, you’re completely signed out of your Google Account. Am I reading this correctly? When I sign out from one of the Gmail accounts I keep open, I will be signed out of Chrome? I hope this is a misunderstanding.

Just tried and that certainly seems to be the case. Signing in, or out, of either chrome or website accounts will reflect that action in the other space.

I have to check how does it work with multiple Google accounts. This is silly.

Anyway, I just spend 30 minutes searching for Firefox Add-ons replacements for my Chrome Add-ons and I am pleasantly surprised. A new era begins!

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#348

Post by thug »

KumarAseem wrote: post #335
RossM wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what is the user facing benefit? Syncing bookmarks, recently opened tabs, passwords, autofill(?). These are genuine benefits when you're working with laptops, desktops, phones and tablets. Whether they're worth the cost of data mining is another matter of course.

Out of the total population of the chrome users, how many really use more than 1 computer? These benefits may apply only for few users, probably in single percentage figures, which does not justify pushing it down the throats of everyone.

Well, most people. I use it to sync between laptop, tablet and smartphone.

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#349

Post by rakoo »

RossM wrote: post #295
TekMol wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to be logged in in my browser at all Same here. Why does Chrome log you in in the first place? I mean I know it from the companies perspective of course. They want to consolidate as much data about you as possible. And tie you into their ecosystem. But what is the user facing benefit? Syncing your bookmarks across devices?

> But what is the user facing benefit? Syncing bookmarks, recently opened tabs, passwords, autofill(?). These are genuine benefits when you're working with laptops, desktops, phones and tablets. Whether they're worth the cost of data mining is another matter of course.

Ironically, from the article itself, this automatic sign in will not turn sync on automatically. This is probably the most confusing decision that can be.

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#350

Post by feanaro »

judge2020 wrote: post #18
dannyw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One nasty change was that clearing all cookies no longer cleared Google cookies with these changes. That is a big, privacy-impacting change.

I think that change was merited because of the "signed into chrome vs google" issue they were trying to solve. Say I clear my cookies on a signed-in, syncing account. With G Cookies also deleted, I may wonder "Why is my picture in the top right but no Google services are using it??". To us, it's clear that chrome sign-in is different from google sign-in, but to others, it may not be.

> To us, it's clear that chrome sign-in is different from google sign-in, but to others, it may not be.

But the fact that they are different things is precisely the reason why they should remain separate, not conflated into one soggy, confusing mess.

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