"Remember Me" should be off by defult
 

I (relatively) frequently visit LQ from a shared computer, and find it seriously annoying to have to specifically disable the "Remember Me" box every single time I do this. Can we please have this option turned off by default, as most other similar sites already do?

Having this option turned off by default would be more sensible for a number of reasons, for example:

1. Since most other sites have this option off by default, this is what users expect. It is very easy to make mistakes when one particular site behaves unexpectedly.
2. The default option should be the one that is easier to correct if applied erroneously. If a user inadvertently opts not to be "remembered" than all they have to do is opt to be "remembered" next time, whereas if they inadvertently opt to be "remembered" it is very difficult to then get "forgotten".
3. A user wishing to be "remembered" only has to select this option once, whereas a user not wishing to be "remembered" has to deselect this option every single time they log in. It makes more sense to ask one group of users to select an option once than to ask another group to deselect an option every single time.

Seconded, if it matters ...

We default it to yes as a *much* higher percentage of members use it that way. It's actually fairly easy to get "forgotten", you simply need to click the "Log Out" link next to your username. It's possible that we may make this a user configurable option in the future, if you'd like to add it to the bug tracker. Thanks for the feedback.

--jeremy

How can this be user configurable, given that the check box appears before the user logs in?

At the time the when the box appears the server doesn't even know which user is visiting the site, so can't possibly apply any user settings at that stage!

I know I have been tripped up by the non-standard behavior of this site on many occasions, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Please read the reasons I presented above for adopting a more standard default.

There could be a variety of ways to implement it. The one I thought of immediately was having a cookie with the yes value and a default of no.

--jeremy

Personally, I find the "Remember Me" option to be a null point when using a shared computer. Simply log out, and the next user would need to know your username and password to actually log in as you, regardless of whether or not "Remember Me" is checked. Just my :twocents:

I wonder what the OP met by a "shared computer?" If it is shared by a known set of users, each user should have their own log in name, password, and home directory.

If (as I suspect) it is a "public access" computer, all cookies should be "per session" by (immutable) default, and the browser (e.g., Firefox, eh?) should have an option to delete all "personally identifiable" information on its home page.

That would be a machine-specific setting, not a user setting. That could not possibly differentiate between different users on the same machine, or apply the correct settings for the same user if they use a different machine or even a different browser on the same machine. Also a major point of not being "remembered" is that the site does not leave any cookies on the machine.

There is no possible way of reliably applying user-specific settings without first knowing which user is accessing the site, so applying user settings before the user has logged in is impossible.

Having a separate user profile for each user is not always either practical or necessary.

If you borrow a friends computer just to look at a few sites on for ten minutes, you probably don't even have your own log in on a computer that is not yours. Do you always create a new user profile just to look at one site in that situation? I'm sure not all people do, nor is it necessary.

True, but that's a bit off-topic... :scratch:

I can borrow the friends computer, log in at LQ, then log out when I'm done, and nobody can automatically log in as me regardless of whether I bothered to uncheck "Remember Me".

"Remember Me" only allows the site to place a cookie on your computer. Logging out removes it.