[asuffield]

Notice that this is a feature you have to turn on (try it!). Obviously in order to perform cross-device synchronisation, it's necessary to send this information.

I'm not free to discuss the details of how these systems work, but consider this: if both the statements "Google will store this information" and "the fact that you are using Chrome does not cause Google to receive any special or additional personally identifying information about you" are hard requirements, how would you implement this feature?

[minthd]

Of course "the fact that you are using Chrome does not cause Google to receive any special or additional personally identifying information about you." could be true.

But Agreeing to sign to the history sync feature is something different , not covered by "using Google Chrome".So now Google is free to use your history.

And let's be realistic here. Most people don't think about the implications of login into Google(even if it says sync of bookmarks , history etc) and probably don't read the instructions. Many even don't understand what it means. And realistically most people see a Google login box which they filled a million times, and fill it once more, as a sort of a pavlovian response.

[minthd]

>> Notice that this is a feature you have to turn on (try it!)

This isn't true , according to this post in google product forums(and others like it who complain about unwanted sharing and how stop it) :

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/hOk8r9...

And personally i've tried it , and that's false - the default is history sharing.

I don't want to be rude, but are you some kind of a troll, or just enjoying spreading lies ?

[asuffield]

The answer given there is simply not correct. Click: settings, advanced sync settings, uncheck "history".

I am quite confident that the default behaviour when you install chrome is that you are not signed in. It definitely doesn't share any history when you're not signed in. It wouldn't make a lot of sense to have a login box otherwise ;)

I also feel that the message you get when you decide whether or not to sign in to chrome makes the purpose of this feature quite clear: "Sign in to get your bookmarks, history and settings on all your devices." Here's the detailed page it links to: https://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/chrome/browser/signin.html

I'm not sure what behaviour you were expecting, can you clarify?

[killwhitey]

Fresh install of Chrome. https://i.imgur.com/4ZyuSNN.png Notice how little "No thanks" and "Choose what to sync are". Nice anti-pattern.

And if you simply sign in and don't choose anything, this is what you get https://i.imgur.com/XQSxwu5.png

[asuffield]

That all seems clear and reasonable to me. I double checked the size of 'No thanks' and 'Choose what to sync' in the chrome dev tools: they are 13px, which is exactly the same size as 'Sign in' and 'Need help'. Signing in without making a specific selection gives you what the third line on the screen said it would do.

What, if anything, is wrong with this?

[anon1385]

Good grief. Are you seriously comparing the text in a huge, boldly coloured and centred button with an undecorated link outside of the main UI element and claiming they have equal weight on the page just because the basic text height is the same?

When people talk about employees at large tech companies being in a disconnected bubble of delusion, this is the kind of thing they must mean.

[asuffield]

The grandparent said it was smaller, and I was merely observing that it is not. If you want to talk about colours, the colours used in both locations are the same: one is white on blue, the other is blue on white. I suppose you can claim that one is closer to the centre than the other, but this feels like splitting hairs.

When I look at this page, these buttons both seem quite readable to me, and I don't feel that either of them is concealed or hard to press. I do not believe that this page is deceptive or misleading in any way. It clearly and directly tells you what it does. And let's not forget that it's not doing a bad thing, it's offering people a feature which appears to be popular. If you're particularly concerned about adding another layer of privacy defence on top of the already fairly formidable ones that you get by default, you can add your own passphrase to encrypt the information locally on each device, and you can examine the source in chromium if you want to be sure you know what it does.

If you're complaining that the people who designed the feature are trying to encourage people to use it, then frankly I think your complaint is unreasonable.

[sanxiyn]

You know it is wrong, because it misleads users. UI is not about technical accuracy, it is about what users do.

[asuffield]

How do you believe this is misleading users? It seems quite clear to me, and while this is anecdotal rather than data, based on the people I know the feature seems to be quite popular.

[rockdoe]

Notice that this is a feature you have to turn on (try it!).

Can you use an Android phone without this? AFAIK that's essentially impossible without very deep technical knowledge.

[asuffield]

Yes, you can. If you use a clean Nexus build then last time I tried it, the behaviour was that the first time I opened Chrome it asked me if I wanted to sign in to chrome to share my history and bookmarks between devices, and I had a simple yes/no choice. I don't think this needed any deep technical knowledge.

I'm not intimately familiar with the android chrome settings UI, so I apologise if I've missed an easier way, but in about 30 seconds of tapping I found the button to turn it off: main settings page, accounts, my google account, sync, uncheck chrome.