Okay, this (to me) is kind of weird. My wife and I use different computers connected to the same network. She uses an iMac and I have a PC laptop, neither of which can, as far as I know, talk to each other. We both use Chrome as a search engine.
Yesterday I clicked on “New Tab” on my laptop and a bunch of unfamiliar searches showed up in the drop-down. As I looked at them, I realized that they were searches done by my wife on her Mac.
How is this possible?
Are you both logged into the same Chrome or Google account?
Or are your accounts family-shared/linked in some way?
We are logged in to the same Google account, so I can see how that might be the culprit. But why hasn’t this happened prior to now? I suppose it’s possible that I just never noticed it before, but it seems unlikely.
Did one of you reinstall Chrome somewhere or maybe turned on automatic sync by accident somehow? Maybe Chrome nagged you about it?
BTW, if you two frequently share computers and don’t want your everythings merged, Chrome Profiles can be helpful.
Searching on my Android phone frequently turns up the same search terms in memory that I got from using Google on my PC - in Firefox, not Chrome. So I suspect that’s it. If you don’t scan through the suggestions you’d never notice.
Thanks for the help. Well, it’s no big deal, as we’re both pretty boring. Neither of us are looking to buy sniper rifles or are looking at bomb-making sites on the dark web.
Perhaps it’s related to the fact that both devices (Mac and PC, or in the other case PC and phone) were on the same Wifi so identified as “the same household”. Google as I understand keeps track of a lot more than just what each particular device has looked for. They probably even have a data point as to where you work, based on the IP address associated with your work WiFi when your phone is there. And the location of home or work if you allow your phone browser to use GPS location. Who else works there based on collective phone/laptop data. (The sort of massive trove of data that concerns the government when it’s collected by TikTok use. “Show me all the phones that habitually are at the State Department offices…and where their home IP is.”)
Is it possible that the last time she was on her computer, Chrome didn’t shut down properly? So when you started Chrome, it restored the webpages she had open last?
I have had this happen when I restarted my machine (to install updates, etc.) – this shuts down open applications (including Chrome), finishes the install, and restarts the OS. But if I’ve walked away, then when I open it the next day, Chrome restores all the webpages that I had been looking at previously.