I think the idea that you only access personal stuff from your own devices on your own time is unrealistic. There are restricted environments (intelligence agencies and such) where it's necessary, but outside of those I think people commonly expect that if they get their work done and avoid illegal / pornographic / other NSFW content, they can do some personal browsing at work, typically on work-owned hardware. The company can expect otherwise, but it may not work out well for morale / staff retention. I don't know anyone who comes in, maintains 100% focus on work for 8+ hours, and then goes home.

Of course, if someone is signing into their personal account using work hardware, they're basically saying they trust the company not to do any intrusive monitoring, where "intrusive" is something I'm deliberately leaving a bit vague. The company probably has some idea what sites they visit but employees expect that the company is not stealing their credentials or having someone virtually read over their shoulder without a very good reason. If outside intruders get into work device management servers and such, employees' personal stuff is at risk also, but they're willing to accept this for the sake of convenience.

I have, on my work-owned laptop, both work and personal Chrome profiles. (The analogous Firefox feature is multi-account containers.) I might only bring a work laptop when traveling for work. Most of the time, and certainly if I'm presenting during a meeting, I'm using the work profile. I'll use the other only when I'm alone. I lock my screen when I'm not there; I have sensitive access, so this is expected for reasons other than protecting my personal data.

Conversely, work allows me to access my work email and some other internal sites from my personal phone if I agree to certain device management restrictions. I do this rather than carry two phones. Some people choose otherwise.

> I think the idea that you only access personal stuff from your own devices on your own time is unrealistic.

Once upon a time that was the case - "Cyber Monday" as a prime case in point. Some limited amount of non-work browsing is generally still fine at most offices I deal with, most notably checking news, weather, sports scores, etc.

However as a person responsible for making sure there are no breaches (particularly reportable ones) at offices, I'm moving more and more to the "No personal use. Period. No debate." position. I can control the kind of filtering, AV checks and attachments that come into the office via the business email as an example, but if people are checking their personal email on company systems I may not be able to catch the "Huh, I don't remember ordering from them, I wonder what this invoice email is all about?" person. Antivirus is all well and good but it's not 100%, and while I can look at the mail filters and see that there were 400 PDFs with variations of "Delivery Notification" or "Invoice 1234567" blocked in the last half hour to a ton of different addresses, Jane Smith in Billing or Accounts Payable may only see one or two - and on a really bad day, opening just one may be all it takes.

Also, these days a huge percentage of people not only have smartphones but use those smartphones as their primary devices for Internet access. 5 years ago that wasn't the case, but now? George with the iPhone 7 Plus can quite easily check his email or do plenty of other things that would have been much less pleasant on an iPhone 4.

I dunno. I can see your concern, but it seems to me like a Wal-Mart anti-theft guy saying we need to search all employees before allowing them to leave the store. I'm sure it would solve some problems and reduce your personal headaches, but that doesn't necessarily make it reasonable.

> I can look at the mail filters and see that there were 400 PDFs with variations of "Delivery Notification" or "Invoice 1234567" blocked in the last half hour to a ton of different addresses, Jane Smith in Billing or Accounts Payable may only see one or two

Wouldn't Jane Smith from Accounts Payable anyway open a PDF invoice email, regardless of the address?

I've been going back an forth between Chrome and Firefox for the past couple of months with the number of posts that I've seen on HN. Every time I always realize that Firefox doesn't have workspaces. This comment made me realize that containers are the alternative. Hopefully, I'll be able to switch over to FF more full time now that I have this solution. Thanks for this comment!

> I pointed out that the porn bookmarks in question were years old and that since Chrome was signed into a personal account it was pretty likely that the same account had been used by other family members at home.

So the offence was merely having porn bookmarks in their browser - not visiting porn sites at work? Wow.

This is in an environment with multiple people at a long open desk with patients on the other side of the counter. Someone sat down to check something, or check someone in or out, I don't know the details. They hit the Bookmarks button, and right there on the list was a PornHub link to something about a teen and anal sex. This caused a bit of an uproar about inappropriate use of the computer systems, though it may have stayed behind closed doors.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if the person whose account it was didn't even know that bookmarks exist in Chrome - it's not like Google makes it obvious these days. I suspect there were some awkward discussions at home that evening, or possibly on the phone with college-age children.

Eh, I mean fair enough. Somebody else goes to use the browser and notices the bookmarks, what else would they expect?

I imagine porn bookmarks showing up in an official screencast, presentation, or live product demo would do wonders to a company's image and reputation.

This story would deserve a blog post of its own. Google might not realize it, but the ease of being tracked by them is also a risk in work place.

> Google might not realize it,

LOL

@fencepost - do u know if it is possible to transfer all those chrome accnt pref from a personal gmail to a gsuite accnt?

For this reason my place of work hosts Firefox rather than Chrome.