Facebook and Gmail users - Have you been noticing this? Should I be worried?
For the last week or so I’ve been noticing that I get logged out of Facebook and Gmail even though I check “keep me logged in”. Sometimes it’s normal, but I’d say 7 or 8 times out of 10 that I get online I’m logged out. The same thing is happening with Facebook. Is it a new safety thing that I missed? Are they doing work on the sites that would effect the log in process? I’ve changed my passwords twice this week, that hasn’t changed it. Also, would gophers nibbling on the phone line effect this? We think our underground phone line might’ve been gotten by gophers. So yeah…should I be worried?
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7 Answers
Most websites use cookies to store user data to authenticate the user (or at least cookies to store what session you are using on the server). All cookies expire after a certain time period, depending on what they set that time to, maybe a week, a month, after the browser closes etc.
Either you haven’t visited the site recently enough, or perhaps you or someone else is clearing out your history, which a lot of times can clear cookies. That would require you to have to log back in.
Finally I have heard of some anti-virus software clears cookies for various reasons. I can neither confirm nor deny this, but I could see how many would do that due to many consumers think cookies are bad for your computer when they are not, they are essential for modern web pages.
Overall, check your browser settings to ensure its not clearing your history, or automatically removing cookies for some various reason.
@wgallios Might you know how to do that in Google Chrome, or should I just look it up?
Slight laziness here… ;)
In Chrome (I’m currently running Ubuntu, but I would assume the instructions would be similar for windows) goto Options, then under the “Under the Hood” tab, click the “Content settings…” under Privacy. In there you can see options if the browser will clear cookies etc. Look around there to see if any options might be check that are causing your issue.
I can tell you a lot of people don’t seem to notice the already checked (which I believe shouldn’t happen) “keep me logged in” box. If it is a public computer, a security problem, I guess. So maybe that is why. Even if for people who own their own computers, what if it gets stolen, gets lose their laptops?
Not on Gmail or Facebook, but on Google Docs I’ve experienced that, even when I first login to get my documents list, when I then click a document it opens a new tab and again asks me to enter my password (“because you have to do that once in a while when you’re constantly signed in”). I’d think there’d be some time between every time you have to enter your password again.
Just a browser security setting, nothing really to worry about. The only browser I’ve noticed that works with that is IE, which is insecure, so I don’t use it.
This happens to me occasionally with Fluther also.
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