Disable Google Chrome Sync and Auto Sign-in to the Browser

Starting in Chrome 69, the browser features significant changes to the user interface. These include a 'Material Design Refresh' theme with rounded tabs, the removal of the 'Secure' text badge for HTTPS web sites replaced by a Lock icon, and a reworked new tab page. Also, Google Chrome automatically signs you into the browser using the same Google account that you use to login to Gmail, YouTube, or any other Google service. If you are unhappy about this behavior, here's how to disable it.

Google Chrome comes with a number of useful options which are experimental. They are not supposed to be used by regular users but enthusiasts and testers can easily turn them on. These experimental features can significantly improve the user experience of the Chrome browser by enabling additional functionality. To enable or disable an experimental feature, you can use hidden options called 'flags'. Often, flags can be used to revert new features and restore the classic look and feel of the browser for some period of time. For example, there is a special flag which allows restoring the classic New Tab page.

As of this writing, Google Chrome 69 uses your Google account data without any prompt and shows you that you're "signed in". Check out the following screenshot:

The browser is using my YouTube profile icon.

According to Adrienne Porter Felt, Engineer & manager of the Google Chrome project at Google, the browser only changes the user profile icon. It doesn't sign-in to the account and doesn't actually send or sync your browsing data. Check out his Twitter HERE.

This appears to be true. In my screenshot above, you may notice that the sign-in button is still available.

Many users are not happy with this behavior. Thankfully, it can be disabled.

Using a hidden flag, you can prevent Google Chrome from automatically signing in to the sync functionality when you sign in to any Google service.

To disable Google Chrome Auto Sign-in to the browser, do the following.

1. Open the Google Chrome browser and type the following text into the address bar:

   chrome://flags/#account-consistency

   This will open the flags page directly with the relevant setting.

2. Set the option named Identity consistency between browser and cookie jar. Set it to Disabled.
3. Restart Google Chrome by closing it manually or you can also use the Relaunch button which will appear at the very bottom of the page.
4. The new behavior is now disabled.

See the following screenshots.

Before:

After:

The flag mentioned above appears to be broken in Google Chrome 71 and above. Probably, the engineering team behind the browser has disabled it intentionally. If you are using Google Chrome 71+, you can apply a Registry tweak instead.

A Solution for Google Chrome 71

On Windows

1. Open the Registry Editor app.
2. Go to the following Registry key.

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Google\Chrome

   See how to go to a Registry key with one click. This key may not exist on your computer, so create the missing subkeys manually.

3. On the right, create a new 32-Bit DWORD value SyncDisabled.
   Note: Even if you are running 64-bit Windows you must still create a 32-bit DWORD value.
   Set its value data to 1 in decimal.
4. Restart Windows 10.

This will completely disable the Sync feature. The policy option will prevent users from signing in to the browser, so this is exactly what we need.

On Linux

If you are using Chrome on Linux, do the following.

1. Open the root terminal.
2. Create these directories if they do not already exist:

   # mkdir /etc/opt/chrome/policies
   # mkdir /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed
   # mkdir /etc/opt/chrome/policies/recommended

   

3. Change the directory permissions as follows (make them writable only for root)

   # chmod -w /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed

4. To set policies that are required, create a file named "test_policy.json" under /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/.

   # touch /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/test_policy.json

5. Open the test_policy.json file with your favorite text editor, e.g. Vim.
6. Put the following text in the file:

   {
   
   "SyncDisabled": true
   
   }

7. Save the file.
8. Restart the browser. I suggest you to sign out from your user account and then sign in again.

For Chromium, repeat the steps above, but put everything in /etc/chromium.

Or, to share the policy, perform the steps above and then symlink /etc/chromium/policies to /etc/opt/chrome/policies/.

# mkdir -p /etc/chromium/
# ln -s /etc/opt/chrome/policies /etc/chromium/

For reference, see the following web page.

You can see the applied policies by typing chrome://policy in the address bar.

That's it.

Update: After receiving negative feedback from users, Google is about to remove the controversial changes in the browser, and change its behavior. See this post in the official blog.

Articles of interest:

• Remove Close Buttons From Inactive Tabs in Google Chrome
• Change New Tab Button Position in Google Chrome
• Disable New Rounded UI in Chrome 69
• Enable Native Titlebar in Google Chrome in Windows 10
• Enable Picture-in-Picture mode in Google Chrome
• Enable Material Design Refresh in Google Chrome
• Enable Emoji Picker in Google Chrome 68 and above
• Enable Lazy Loading in Google Chrome
• Permanently Mute Site in Google Chrome
• Customize New Tab Page in Google Chrome
• Disable Not Secure Badge for HTTP Web Sites in Google Chrome