Privacy Concern: Using Vivaldi on another computer
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Hi All,
Buckle-up. Grab a beer. This is gonna be a read..
Act 1, Scene 1. jkjk
Occasionally, I visit my friend at his office. Conveniently, he has a spare desk, chair and a Windows Desktop. I downloaded Vivaldi on the computer a week ago, but it was early days - i only discovered Vivaldi two weeks ago.
Didn't sign in to my Vivaldi account when I downloaded the client a week ago, because I didn't have an account yet lol
Long story short, I've converted to Vivaldi-sm. I created an account on my Mac, and it is now my default browser.
Cut to today. I get to my friends office. I open the office computer. Fire up Vivaldi. Quickly I realize it needs updating. And updating one more time.
Vivaldi: 4.0.2312.33 (Stable channel) downloaded successfully.I fire it up, and log into my account. Syncing is quick and painless. The only 'unusual' thing was that I had no access to the new Beta features (Mail, Feeds, etc.). Maybe for security? Either way, no big deal.
I complete my browsing/work session and am ready to leave the office. Here's where things get strange.
The minute click I logout, my username and password are autofilled into the Login fields. I never click ‘Save Password’ when I’m using someone else’s workspace. But this isn’t a hill I’ll die on. Maybe, for some uncharacteristic moment of ‘me not being me’, I did click save password. Cool.
Curious, I click Login. And wouldn’t-ya know. I’m logged in. Ok, I think, let’s get it right this time. I logout again. Account details auto-fill again. Instead of logging in this time, I try to un-check ‘Save Password’. Nope. Not clickable lol.
There isn’t even a button in sight to delete user login details. Only ‘Create Vivaldi.net Account’ and ‘Login’ exist in my little Vivaldi ecosystem.
Long story short (second time I ‘long story short’-you guys ;p), the only fix I am able to come up with is fill the username and password feels with gibberish then click login. As I’m typing this, I logged out of my account on my Mac. Same thing. Save password = un-clickable and box checked. I deleted ONE character from my username, save password un-checks. I add that very same character, and SAVE PASSWORD CHECKS!! BAHHHH!
I must admit, once I deleted my user name of password, signed back in, then logged back out, save password was now clickable. Fun times.
Long long long story short, I’m now logged out of my account, random characters in place of my username and password. Close Vivaldi. Re-open it. Go to settings. Check the login fields. Random characters. Bingo.
Exit Vivaldi settings. Go to close the browser, BUT WAIT, there’s more!!
All my bookmarks and notes lists and saved web panel links are still there for everyone to see. Vivaldi Captures with Notes. The notes are readable but the media files are inaccessible.
I could write another short-story about this trouble-shooting adventure. But I won’t.
Long story short, after trial and error, I had to leave the office with Vivaldi, if opened by anyone, flaunting my notes & bookmarks & saved web panel webpages.
I hope I’m an idiot and the fix is easy. Because if it isn’t, I might have to consider returning to Chrome.
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@yqq8 Well, the main question is: How much do you trust your friend and their colleagues?
If this desktop is open to all, have your friend (or someone moderately skilled with computers) create separate login accounts on the desktop, and let you set your own password. Should be safe enough, depending again how much you trust your friend and their colleagues, who probably have Admin and physical access to the machine anyway.
Lastly, the best way is probably to just remember to securely erase the Vivaldi user profile before leaving the machine.
There are several free tools that allow you to do so:https://www.raymond.cc/blog/permanently-delete-and-remove-sensitive-files-to-prevent-data-recovery/
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sdelete
Finally, another option is just boot into recovery mode and do a
format C: /P:4
before leaving. Then see how many more times you get invited to borrow the computer -
@yqq8 Sounds like a bug to report?
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