X

Google to restore passwords eaten by Chrome iOS app

A bug involving the Incognito anonymous-browsing feature was wiping out users' saved passwords as well as some other data. But Google says it's got the issue in its sights.

Edward Moyer Senior Editor
Edward Moyer is a senior editor at CNET and a many-year veteran of the writing and editing world. He enjoys taking sentences apart and putting them back together. He also likes making them from scratch. ¶ For nearly a quarter of a century, he's edited and written stories about various aspects of the technology world, from the US National Security Agency's controversial spying techniques to historic NASA space missions to 3D-printed works of fine art. Before that, he wrote about movies, musicians, artists and subcultures.
Credentials
  • Ed was a member of the CNET crew that won a National Magazine Award from the American Society of Magazine Editors for general excellence online. He's also edited pieces that've nabbed prizes from the Society of Professional Journalists and others.
See full bio
Edward Moyer
2 min read

Browsing "Incognito" on Chrome for iOS may help protect users' privacy, but it was having the opposite effect on their saved passwords.

The Next Web reported earlier today that numerous iPhone and iPad users had been complaining about their saved passwords vanishing in the recently updated Chrome iOS app.

According to a thread on the Chrome development site Chromium, the problem had to do with closing an Incognito tab after browsing anonymously.

But it seems the Chrome folks heard the gripes:

"We know about the data loss and are working to recover your passwords and typed URLs (omnibox search history)," reads a post in the Google Chrome forum pointed to by Google Consumer Experience Specialist Sie Deen Aguilar. "We've also blocked further automatic deletes from happening, so no additional passwords should be lost while we fix this."

The post adds, however, that "'Most Visited' URLs may not be restored and may continue to be deleted if you use and exit Incognito mode on the current release of Chrome for iOS," so Chrome for iOS users should be careful there.

Deen says in her own post that "the root cause of this issue will be fixed in the next release of Chrome on the App Store, which we are working to get to you ASAP." She also asks Chrome for iOS users not to "attempt to clear your synced data from the Google Dashboard, as that may interfere with the recovery."

Google told The Next Web that it would "have password data restored for all users within a few hours." Judging from the forums linked to above, that hasn't happened just yet.