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Comment by ewjordan | Hacker News Reader

I'm still not clear about what the actual change in behavior even is - seeing some statements on Twitter from someone on the dev team, it sounded to me like there isn't actually any difference, just a UI change to show which Gmail account is currently logged into.

If that's really all it is, I don't really get what people are upset about. Specifically, if there's no additional data being stored connected to your account (which is what one of the devs seemed to be very explicitly claiming) until you deliberately connect Chrome to your account, this seems like a whole bunch of drama over a misunderstanding.

If I'm wrong, then that's a separate matter. Personally, I appreciate the syncing features, but I completely understand why people would be bothered, and it's definitely something they should roll back.

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I work at Google, but all statements/opinions are my own.

My understanding is that there were two changes:

1. General responsibility for authenticating to Google services has been moved to Chrome, and being logged into Google is equivalent to being logged into Chrome. If sync is set up, logging back into Google also fixes your sync session, if it was broken (common — the warning in the toolbar is easy to ignore).

2. Sync has been separated from login as a Chrome feature, so that you can log into Google services without syncing Chrome’s data.

Confusion between being logged into Google (the Chrome new tab page looks a heck of a lot like the Google home page) and being logged into Chrome was a real problem. I’m not suggesting that this is the right solution… or the wrong one; this is weird territory.

It raises a question for both users and browser vendors: What does it mean to be logged into a web browser?

That's just a diplomatic way of saying "so what if we logged you in". Well you don't understand how distrustful people are of Google these days, especially power users. I wouldn't give a byte of information about me to Google if I don't have to.

> It raises a question for both users and browser vendors: What does it mean to be logged into a web browser?

And who - exactly - ever asked for the ability to "log into a web browser"? And what benefits are there for the user?

There would be zero confusion about "Am I logged in to Google or logged in to Chrome?" without the unwanted and unexpected existence of a "logged in to a web browser" status.

This is privacy disaster over a feature nobody wants. Except for the people who actively profit from privacy disasters...

I've happily used Chrome's Sync features for years with separate profiles for personal and $job. I use it across multiple devices daily.

https://chrome.google.com/sync

I appreciate people have different concerns, but also just completely fail to grasp them in this case.

I use several different computers and operating systems regularly, and it's really useful to have my browser history, bookmarks, extensions and other configuration synced up.

That's not to say I'd be miserable without it, but it's a nice convenience that almost immediately upon starting up a new machine, my browser is set up exactly the way I like just logging in.

This illustrates what may be the real problem. Chrome’s sync is a genuinely useful feature. There is no reason at all it needs to be conflated with being signed in to websites.

For that matter, sync is a fantastic use of E2E encryption, and it will be interesting to see if using sync data for any purpose other than syncing it is a GDPR violation.

>"It raises a question for both users and browser vendors: What does it mean to be logged into a web browser?"

Which is a question so absurd that no user should ever need to ponder it. The question wasn't "raised." Your diction suggests it arose in some organic fashion and it did not. Let's be clear - the question was forced upon the user.

Now if you log into a Google account, Chrome is logged into that same account as well. Also if you clear all cookies, cookies from Google aren't cleared. Some people (myself included) don't like that.

But this is only if you already have Chrome Sync ("logging in to Chrome") turned on and enabled, correct? Because I have a bunch of different Chrome profiles that I use for different purposes, and I don't see the ones that I use for particular Gmail accounts getting logged in to Chrome.

(not a chrome user, but:) my understanding is that now if you log into google (e.g. a gmail account), you automatically get logged into chrome, including Chrome Sync.

Yes, you automatically get logged into chrome. Supposedly sync will not automatically be enabled, but if you ever enabled it in the past it will be turned back on for your chrome session as well. It's unclear what happens to old (pre-login) history and cookies when this happens.

That is not at all my understanding. If you don't have sync enabled, nothing automatically enables sync. You have to go through a large confirmation dialog (with an "undo" button) to enable sync.

Yet...</cynical mode>

You’re being downvoted, but this is exactly the concern that a sweeping change like this provokes. Who’s to say Google won’t decide that a lack of sync is a problem they can silently fix too?

Who's to say they aren't going to backdoor Chrome to pop a shell on your box next time you search Google? Who's to say Mozilla won't do the same?

The devil has enough advocates.

The turn on sync thing is already reported to be a dark pattern.

Also see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18062082

Yes, lots of people reported it to be a "dark pattern", but I'm very much with Nikita Borisov on this one:

https://twitter.com/nikitab/status/1044314072706158593

Meanwhile: whatever color you want to shade in the "pattern" with, this subthread starts with a claim that is falsifiable, and also actually false. So please don't pretend like I'm arguing from abstractions here.

Thanks, I don't use Chrome that much (or at all if I an avoid it) so that's interesting.

Still there are the claims of buybackoff that I linked above that options has been set without their consent.

So it seems to me there's either a muddy pattern or they even are tweaking things on behalf of users whitout even asking?

Edit: also this from the post we are discussing:

> However, by clicking on “settings” I was unable to click “undo” - the user interface happily assumed that yes, in fact I wanted to first upload my data. And suddenly, instead of “Last time synced in 2017” I saw the following: “Last time synced on Today”.

Yeah my account was signed in and syncing when, prior to the update, I explicitly turned off sync so that was alarming to me. I immediately turned off syncing and now I can't trust Google to obey my settings anymore. They randomly turn on syncing when I use Google voice assistant on my Android phone.

> Also if you clear all cookies, cookies from Google aren't cleared.

Wait, WHAT? Are you talking about locally or in sync? I don't believe Sync ever included cookies, and there's no indication on the Clear Browsing Data tool that Google cookies won't be cleared if "All Time" is selected.

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