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Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

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Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#161

Post by h2onock »

isolli wrote: post #17
h2onock wrote: post #10

I don’t understand why people are complaining about this. If you’re concerned about privacy then why would you even use a Google product in the first place? There are other options.

Chrome has become the de facto standard browser. I regularly run into websites that don't work (or don't work well) in Firefox.

I use Firefox in excess of 10 hours every day and don’t have any problems so I find this statement very surprising. I’m not sure about Chrome being the de facto standard either and even if it is, it doesn’t mean you have to follow it.

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#162

Post by h2onock »

james_pm wrote: post #18
h2onock wrote: post #10

I don’t understand why people are complaining about this. If you’re concerned about privacy then why would you even use a Google product in the first place? There are other options.

Because my employer forces me to use G Suite and some of the features of that (Meet) don't work well (or at all) in non-Chrome browsers.

Wouldn’t you just use your work account for this then and keep it separate from your personal digital footprint? I would, or I’d change jobs.

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#163

Post by orbitingpluto »

jonbronson wrote: post #146
TheDong wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why are so many people outraged? Whenever you think that many people are outraged and someone else claims that it's not the case, the logical conclusion is that you or both of you are in bubbles. Is it possible that you, a hacker news poster, are in a bubble whereby you've heard the opinion of tech-savy people, but not the opinion of the average mom who doesn't even realize the auto-login is the reason her android…

I agree it's worth acknowledging that it is the tech crowd that is concerned, and that's exactly what we should expect. This was a stealth-release feature that doesn't really explain itself and has no clear way to disable. It seems completely reasonable that it is tech experts who are the ones to first notice this problem, and rightly criticize it.

I agree that it is worth acknowledging that it the tech crowd as well.

But then, who should you be listening to about whether to vaccinate your kid? Jenny McCarthy on social media or a bunch of people who each had to spend several years of effort to be called a doctor? Obviously, go with the better user experience.

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#164

Post by teddyfrozevelt »

nadont8 wrote: post #39
breakingcups wrote: post #11

There's a great way to disable this and many other user-hostile features by going to https://www.mozilla.org/ and downloading Firefox. Suddenly, you are no longer fighting your browser.

>Suddenly, you are no longer fighting your browser. I mean, if you're okay with Pocket showing you ads in your home page, your browsing data being sent to Cliqz, addons that publicise the "Mr Robot" TV show being installed without your consent, Mozilla pages that use Google Analytics scripts that cannot be blocked, then Firefox is a solid choice.

An addon that is not enabled by default, doesn't reference what it's supposed to be "advertising", and will only do anything once going to a specific page after it's already been enabled doesn't seem like a very good advertisement.

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#165

Post by teddyfrozevelt »

lioeters wrote: post #20

I was surprised and angered by the sudden appearance of this automatic sign-in and sync. Between the time that it was activated silently and when I disabled it, I have a nagging suspicion that Google hoovered up my browsing history, bookmarks, passwords, etc. in the guise of "sync". While I couldn't find any evidence, whatever little trust I had left in Chrome is now gone.

This automatic link does not automatically enable Chrome Sync[1]. You can see and delete Chrome Sync data here: https://myaccount.google.com/dashboard

[1]https://twitter.com/__apf__/status/1044110733108101120

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#166

Post by teddyfrozevelt »

d1zzy wrote: post #72

Oh wow, so if you just log in into a Google Account it automatically activates Google Sync without any prompts and starts uploading browser history data and other no-Google properties related browser data? That's pretty nasty. I can understand that for most people this feature is very useful and it's fine to have it, just not fine to enable it by default without even a prompt or something asking users if they want to…

> if you just log in into a Google Account it automatically activates Google Sync without any prompts and starts uploading browser history data and other no-Google properties related browser data?

No, it does not.

https://twitter.com/__apf__/status/1044110733108101120

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#167

Post by bzbarsky »

izzydata wrote: post #59
sha666sum wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've ran into various comments around the internet/reddit that Google sites like Youtube are slower on Firefox, and that changing the user agent to Chrome fixes it.

That seems hard to believe as it would imply that they have code specifically to cripple the Firefox experience. It's probably at worst that they intentionally don't optimize their sites for Firefox and not actively making it worse.

Google does a lot of UA sniffing, and serves different sites to different browsers.

The sites served to non-Chrome receive less QA resources, as far as I can tell, and are often buggy in various ways. Simply spoofing the Chrome UA in Firefox on Android can often get you a site that works better (in Firefox) than the one served to Firefox by default.

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#168

Post by sneak »

JoshMnem wrote: post #144
sneak wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no forced login. You can still use Chrome without logging in to anything. You can also disable Chrome Sync even if Chrome is logged in after logging in to gmail, so “forced” is the wrong term.

You can't use Google Chrome without logging into the browser itself if you use any Google service.

False. Incognito windows. You can also disable the login state sync as many have pointed out.

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#169

Post by sneak »

jonbronson wrote: post #142
sneak wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, even those of us who care about privacy are not all outraged about this. I have been using Chrome Sync (with a clientside encryption passphrase) for years. It always surprised me that there were separate login states for gmail and the browser. This change saves me a step, and reduces user confusion too.

Users who already sign into Chrome are not affected by this issue. But for people who do not already sign in, we have now been force-logged in without consent. That is the problem everyone is outraged about.

But that logged in to Chrome does nothing unless you additionally consent to Sync, so why do you care?

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#170

Post by JoshMnem »

sneak wrote: post #168
JoshMnem wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't use Google Chrome without logging into the browser itself if you use any Google service.

False. Incognito windows. You can also disable the login state sync as many have pointed out.

By disable do you mean use the temporary flag that is already removed in Chrome Canary?

Incognito windows are not a realistic alternative, because that adds more limitations.

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