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Whenever someone tries to log into Google and enters what also happens to be my go-to username for gaming on various platforms, my profile picture and full name appear (both covered here).
Is there a way to prevent this from happening, aside from changing my Google name and profile picture to a fake one or creating a new Gmail account?

Google Login - Password prompt with name formerly visible, but covered here

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    Use a guest OS account for other people to use your machine or routinely remove the account after you have logged out of your Google account from the list of accounts Google knows (quick login or whatever google calls it)
    – Ramhound
    Commented Mar 21, 2020 at 16:47
  • @Ramhound my concern isn't with people using my machine (none other than me), but rather with people being able to know my first and last name by attempting to log into my account, i.e. doxxing me.
    – Manchineel
    Commented Mar 21, 2020 at 17:14
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    Your name is only displayed once you have successfully logged into a previous session. Without access to your machine nobody can know your name. What you see is only displayed to you (at least that screenshot).
    – Ramhound
    Commented Mar 21, 2020 at 17:39
  • Well, I created a Firefox Private Browsing window, went to Gmail, was prompted to sign up or in, typed in my username and that's what I get.
    – Manchineel
    Commented Mar 21, 2020 at 17:46
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    @Ramhound Ok so this is interesting. When connecting with my home IP address it shows me my name, when I'm not it doesn't, and instead shows me a generic "Welcome" message and empty profile picture. None of that has to do with whether or not I was logged into my Google account or not previously on that account. As if Google "trusted" my IP address.
    – Manchineel
    Commented Mar 21, 2020 at 17:51

2 Answers 2

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You noticed that:

When connecting with my home IP address it shows me my name, when I'm not it doesn't, and instead shows me a generic "Welcome" message and empty profile picture.

The reason being you had -sometime in the past- logged in your account using a normal window and NOT a private one and your cookies are still there.

That is what Google reads and "trusts" your IP address.

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  • If by cookies you mean server-side data then sure. But when you open a private window, all cookies get temporarily discarded.
    – Manchineel
    Commented Mar 21, 2020 at 23:17
  • You can test it by using another "clean" browser and not Firefox (maybe even from a different computer). By clean I mean where all Google and Google related cookies have been deleted or have never been used before to log-in using a normal window.
    – marikamitsos
    Commented Mar 21, 2020 at 23:26
  • I just installed another browser, this time on my Android phone (Firefox Focus) and guess what? The same occurs. If I use mobile data it shows "Welcome", on Wi-Fi it shows my name.
    – Manchineel
    Commented Mar 21, 2020 at 23:29
  • @Manchineel a new browser on an Android phone will look at the accounts you have saved on your device. Please simply open a private window.
    – ahorn
    Commented Mar 22, 2020 at 13:08
  • @ahorn Firefox Focus is like a privacy browser with only private browsing mode, it's is meant for sensitive stuff you don't want to log: it doesn't save any cookies past a restart, doesn't have bookmarking, downloads or even multiple tabs. It cannot access the file system and doesn't even request permission to see accounts on the device. But I've tried everything (private tab on a freshly installed Ubuntu included) and the result is always the same: it only shows me my data when the IP I'm connecting from is one I have already used to connect.
    – Manchineel
    Commented Mar 22, 2020 at 14:12
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Actually google tends to be user friendly and it always wants to reduce our tension of often getting session_out problem. So it identifies our static IP address and stores the username and password of your google account in your cookies. So you don't want to often log in into it. The best way is to use a separate mail for all your gaming purposes.

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    Another incorrect answer. No sane system would store your username and password, but rather a session token cookie.
    – Manchineel
    Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 10:35
  • Yea, but when you apply the process of reverse engineering you can crack the username from the session token which has the details in an encrypted manner and even you can do it if you know.
    – Anton Francis Jeejo
    Commented Mar 24, 2020 at 15:15
  • Still, the password isn't stored in plaintext, as it wouldn't be useful alone to access the account (e.g. with 2FA).
    – Manchineel
    Commented Mar 24, 2020 at 17:30
  • Yeah but once if someone knows your email and password then he can break 2FA with SS7 attack and easily get access to your account. Right?
    – Anton Francis Jeejo
    Commented Mar 25, 2020 at 6:59
  • but password isn't stored in any form in the session cookie. That's why you can revoke a session from your account without changing the password.
    – Manchineel
    Commented Mar 25, 2020 at 7:10

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