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I'm on Ubuntu 14.04 using Chromium v40.0 and I've just experienced a weird issue with Google Chrome's autofill function. After clicking on an email form field on a web page I'm currently developing locally (!) I was suggested an email address I have never heard of. Even worse, it was there twice, the other one with a typo:

I Googled that email address and there's only one match linking to a public user profile on a German / British hookah forum. The associated user was last active in 2011 (according to the profile information). The only other public information is his/her nickname on that forum and that he/she has not posted anything.

I have never heard of that email address, I have never heard of that forum and I have no interest in smoking hookah whatsoever.

So what has happened here?

Where does Chrome pull the autofill-suggestions from? Are they stored locally and just bound to the local installation of Chrome or are they somehow synced with the Google account and made available everywhere where I'm logged in with it?

I'm absolutely sure that I've never entered that email address anywhere into chrome (or anywhere else, because I don't know that address). I use Chrome exclusively for local development and Firefox for everything else. And in the rare cases where I need Chrome for something else, I always switch profiles so I don't interfere with my development environment.

Also, there's no chance anyone else ever entered that strange email address here, because I'm the only one using this computer, and I'm using it permanently and never leave it unlocked or without supervision.

If that's relevant, I'm signed in with a Google account in Chrome, but it's not my "real" account (I only use it for development purposes) and I've never used the associated email address anywhere. Also, I'm not logged in with it on any other device.

Is there a chance I got, well... "hacked", or is there some other explanation for that?

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I dont think you have been hacked.

The Chrome Profile data is kept on your PC and remains on your PC, unless you use a named profile on another device. The path (for Win7-10) is C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default.

You can remove it yourself from autofill.

  • Click on Hamburger Menu
  • Click on Settings
  • Click on Autofill on the left
  • Click on Password Manager
  • in the Search box type in [email protected]
  • For unwanted ones, click on 3 dots and select Remove

Maybe some one has been using your computer.

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