New Gmail Account - Trying To Make Me Link Other Accounts

Question

Recently I setup a new Gmail Account and now I get a different Login Interface where the new account never goes away. In order to login to another account I need to click a link that says "sign in with a different email account" That link brings up a new screen but not for login but to ADD an Account or REMOVE an account. Seems to me when I ADD an account then the added account will be linked to the PREVIOUS ACCOUNT. I DO NOT WANT all my accout linked. Is there any way around this?

Also, I have received these Login choices in the past and I would go into Firefox Browser and remove the Google and Gmail cookies then input Gmail.com into a new window and I would get a message that COOKIES were disabled. Then I would ADD the cookies back in and get the login I wanted. Now even with all cookies and removed and cache cleared and no history Google still serves me up the same NEW Login screen and no message about cookies. What can I do?

Answer 1

Using that link will not tie your Google accounts together: it simply says that you can log onto the same computer with those names.

Answer 2

In no way will the accounts you mention be linked to one another. What you are seeing is the tooling to maintain multiple identities within the same browser session.

The bookkeeping for this is done through cookies. It mostly works, but it can get confused at times, especially if you open a lot of tabs with different credentials at the same time and run into timing/order issues. Identities across domains (Google Apps for Work) seem to cause less problems than, say, multiple accounts within the same domain.

Also, not all Google properties deal with multiple identities equally graceful. GMail seems to be the most robust, but Drive apps can not handle multiple accounts on the same domain in the same browser session.

To get a grip on what is happening, either get rid of the cookies or go through the various interfaces to log out of any and all accounts that are listed. Restart the browser for good measure and log back in, in a neat and ordered manner. This usually clears up any issues I have.

Alternative suggestion: Google Chrome allows for separate user profiles. I recommend using one and only one Google Account per profile and maintaining different profiles. To benefit from nicer browser behaviour and cross-device syncing, you can opt to log in to the browser, rather than to various (Google) websites.