The Merged Identity
Google Chrome’s greatest strength is its ecosystem integration. If you sign into Chrome on your laptop, and then sign into Chrome on your work desktop, Google’s “Sync” feature kicks in. By default, it automatically merges your browsing experience across both devices. If you bookmark a recipe at home, it instantly appears on your work computer. While this sounds convenient, it can lead to severe privacy issues or massive clutter if you want to keep your personal browsing (hobbies, shopping) strictly separated from your professional workspace (research, company portals).
Severing the Bookmark Connection
To keep your workspaces isolated and stop Google Chrome from automatically syncing bookmarks between your different computers and mobile devices, you must customize your sync preferences.
Open Google Chrome and click on your Profile picture (the small circular icon located in the very top-right corner, next to the three vertical dots). In the menu that drops down, click the button that says Sync is on (or click the gear icon next to “Other profiles”). This takes you to the “Sync and Google services” settings page. Click on the first option: Manage what you sync. By default, the top radio button “Sync everything” will be selected. Change this by selecting the bottom radio button: Customize sync. The list of toggle switches below will now become active. Find the toggle explicitly labelled Bookmarks and click it to turn it Off. Your current bookmarks will remain, but any future bookmarks you save on this device will no longer be uploaded to your Google account.