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Comment by krisgenre | Hacker News Reader

I personally know people who think they are signing into Chrome when they sign into google.com. Maybe the Chrome team is right about their larger user base?

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They could support both use cases by popping up a dialog on sign-in to a Google web property:

"You're signing into Gmail. Would you like to link Chrome to joebloggs@gmail.com? This will enable automatic notifications in Gmail, sync passwords and web history, and also automatically log into other Google websites when you visit them".

"Yes / No / No, and don't ask again"

Excuse my cynism but the options would be:

"Yes / Ask again later"

You're on the right track but it'd probably be a modal popup with "Google is making things better by inventing foo and elevating bar to the height of technology, as part of this change we'll be cloudifying some technical data. [Accept and Continue?]" with a teensy tiny little x in the corner... possibly burying all these in a EULA update.

I’m thinking just a banner along the top of the viewport with “Dismiss” and “Learn more…” buttons. The latter pops up a window with a small gray “More options…” link at the bottom, which invokes a modal with the options “Continue signed in as Alice” and “Manage Profiles…”, the latter of which allows you to disable syncing while simultaneously deleting all your local bookmarks and browser history.

These last couple of comments were probably some exaggerating pun... But after this story I was running privacy checkup, surprisingly found that my location history was on (after turning it off several times long before, which is a separate question why it turns on), turned it off again and then got 404 when trying to delete it. All this in a labyrinth of often circular links without much clue where the actual switch is.

(A year later) 'Over 90% of our users don't choose to turn these settings off. So we made on the default and removed the option.'

... We passed the point where dark UX patterns deserved the benefit of doubt a few years ago.

If it benefits the company, it's intentional.

This thread got progressively more accurate and more depressing at additional comment

Judging by all those post-GDPR popups I frequently receive the text would also contain some text like “by clicking ‘accept’ or ‘X’ you consent to XYZ.”

Theres almost never a true choice.

You don't have to click on 'accept' or 'X'...

I see where you’re going but that’s just not practicable, isn’t it?

Generally if the notification is getting in the way, I delete it from the DOM.

Given that the popup sitting in my Gmail window currently says

"Update now / Update in 1 week"

I think you're being a little optimistic.

Email harvesting on ecommerce sites have moved on from that to "Yes / I am an evil puppy hater and eat children for breakfast" sort of copy.

Yeah, except:

> This will enable automatic notifications in Gmail

> sync passwords and web history

Chrome 69 does not enable either of these things just by signing into Gmail. (Sync being a separate opt-in has been well discussed. I just tested notifications on a new profile: they're not automatically enabled, and if I try to enable them in Gmail settings, I still get the usual browser permissions dialog.)

> and also automatically log into other Google websites when you visit them.

...and this one would happen regardless of any browser involvement.

I’m still not clear about how exactly this new feature is decoupled from sync. Where is the source of truth for the sync setting — is it in cloud or locally in every browser profile?

If I have chrome sync enabled in browser on desktop a, then login to gmail in chrome on desktop b — is the browser history on desktop b now synced ...?

Also curious whether sync implies that old browser history in desktop b is synced to my account or is it guaranteed to be the case that “only browser data collected while logged in” is eligible for being synced between devices ...?

The question is, what about other sites? Do they also think they're signing into Chrome when logging into amazon.com?

Google services are getting preferential treatment over the rest of the web on a browser with a market share big enough to be subject to an anti trust case. Vestager must be licking her lips right now...

I expect this is the case... I know I myself was thinking a few months ago why Chrome doesn't have the ability to keep the logins in sync. However, why in the world did they enable this by default for people who didn't want their browser to do anything with their Google accounts? It would make sense to keep them in sync when users request to connect their browsers to their accounts, but not when people don't want the two to be connected at all.

Because almost every user in the world wants it connected.

I've been in at least 2 corporate positions where there were strong reasons to separate your personal environment and your professional environment.

I do not want synced browsers between my two environments.

This change makes it inordinately difficult to maintain that separation while utilizing other parts of the google ecosystem.

I use two profiles for that.

I don’t doubt that the Chrome team is right about the problem the majority of their users are facing. It’s just that those users are also unaware of the privacy implications, and supplanting a bad problem with a worse one ain’t a fix.

Maybe the Chrome team is right about their larger user base?

Maybe the Chrome team was wrong to introduce signing in to a browser at all?

> Maybe the Chrome team was wrong to introduce signing in to a browser at all?

maybe, but that would mean that all browser vendors did it wrong. (including mozilla)

> but that would mean that all browser vendors did it wrong. (including mozilla)

I think that's the case, and Mozilla is one of all your friends who are jumping off the proverbial bridge. (Posted from FF, not signed-in.)

Safari doesn't do this (it's part of iCloud, which syncs all docs, not just Safari), and Mozilla doesn't tie signing in to website signing in. I do think this is quantitatively different, esp. considering Google's near monopoly on email accounts.

They are tying website login to browser login, with the intent of merging the two - that's the problem.

To users are Google who are fully invested in that corp having total control of their online life, this fuss will seem quaint and odd, but I do think it will have serious implications long term - people are turning away from search too for similar reasons - abuse your monopoly enough and people will actively seek out other options.

I imagine most people want their bookmarks/history/extensions/settings synced..

Most people have no idea you can even log into Chrome.

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