As time goes by, and we browse the Internet, we save all kinds of data in our browser: users, passwords, logins, bookmarks, a browsing history, etc. This helps us navigate faster, and at the same time, gives a personal touch to our browser. However, this means that, if we share the browser with other people, they can have access to all the information that we have stored in the browser. And of course this poses a security and privacy risk. Therefore, if we share a computer and the same browser, such as Chrome, it is necessary to correctly configure user profiles in it.
Google Chrome users are roughly similar to those of Windows or any other operating system. The Google browser works through “profiles”, user accounts that we can configure in the browser and that will allow us to keep separate and protected all the data of each user.
Each Chrome profile will save all the information related to that user: history, bookmarks, passwords, settings, extensions, etc. And, in addition, you can synchronize all that information with the cloud through the Google account with which we log in. Of course, each browser user account can be protected with a password so that other users cannot access it.
How to create a new user or profile
To use these profiles we do not have to download or install anything. The profiles have been available in Chrome for many years, so we will be able to use them without depending on anything else. By default, when we install the browser, a profile is created, the main one, which will be the one we will start using for the first time. If we click on the profile button we will be able to see a summary with the data of said profile.
At the bottom of the box that appears here we are going to see a section called ” Other people “. This is where we will see all the users that we have created in Chrome. By default, we will only have our main user and a “Guest” user who will help us to share the browser with another person sporadically. The guest user prevents the pages that are opened from appearing in the browser’s history and will not leave other traces such as cookies on the computer after closing the open windows of the guest session. It is very similar to incognito mode.
If we click on “Add” we can create a new user profile in the browser.
From the new window that will appear we will be able to customize the profile. We will be able to choose the name we want to give the profile and the colors of the theme. We can also choose whether or not we want to create a shortcut on the desktop for this user.
When we finish, click on “Done” and that’s it. A new browser window will open with the new profile.
Customize profiles in Chrome
Customizing the appearance of a profile will help us to have it located and identified much faster and easier. To do this, what we must do is click on the icon of our profile, and on the pencil that will appear in the upper right part of it.
A Chrome configuration window will open from which we will be able to edit the user’s name, if we want to give it another, and also choose the user’s profile image.
We can’t customize much more at the profile level. The rest of the customization options (such as the theme) must already be done from the browser itself. And we can also customize the toolbars and extensions of it.
Protect a profile with a password
Until recently, Google Chrome made it easy to password protect profiles . Specifically with the Google password. However, this function is no longer available for reasons that we do not understand. Be that as it may, Chrome does not allow you to protect a profile with a password.
Luckily, there are always developers willing to satisfy any need that the developers themselves do not offer us. And one of these extensions is LockPW.
We can download and install this extension in the user accounts that we want to protect so that, when trying to open a profile, we are asked for the corresponding password. Without it, we will not be able to open the browser profile.
It is not the best way to do it, as it is too “aggressive” a solution, but at least it is effective. This extension will prevent any Chrome user from opening if we do not enter the correct password. In addition, it has other security features that will allow us to reduce the risk of something going wrong, such as, for example, a function to erase the account history after a specified number of attempts. Even the extension process itself is protected in RAM.
Another alternative to prevent other people from accessing our Chrome data is to create a new user in Windows . Each user will have their own browser, and their own configuration files. You can even save your own programs. In this way we can use the computer with greater privacy.
