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I am always logged into StackOverflow and a few other Stack Exchange sites on my computer and iPhone. However, when I go to school, I may need to login on the school's computers to do something.

After completing what I needed to do, I will logout. The message on the logout page states that it is a global logout. At first, I thought this meant that it would just log out all your Stack Exchange profiles from the computer. Unbeknownst to me, it actually logs you out everywhere, even on my home computer and iPhone!

Can we change this or clarify the message?

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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In the latest round of login changes, the logout behaviour changed to what you describe - by default we will only log you out on the device you're on.

There is a "log out on all devices" checkbox to force a logout everywhere to cover situations like accidentally staying logged in on a shared computer somewhere, but it is also off by default.

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Let's assume for a second that you forgot to log out of the school computer. That could end up real bad for you if others end up going to the site and (unintentionally or intentionally) end up acting under your name. Let's say you remembered when you got home that you forgot to log out when you were at school. What do you do now? How do you ensure that someone else doesn't get onto your account short of going back to school to log out?

You use a feature to invalidate all sessions globally, hence the reason for this feature.

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    So do it like Gmail does it and offer both.
    – djechlin
    Apr 23, 2013 at 16:57
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    @djechlin By all means propose a feature request for that if you want.
    – Servy
    Apr 23, 2013 at 17:00
  • @Servy I'm pretty sure that I did by asking if we can change this and by tagging feature-request?
    – Cole Tobin
    Apr 24, 2013 at 2:07
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    @ColeJohnson You asked to change the working, or to change the behavior so that it doesn't log you out globally. If the feature request you want is for there to be an option of whether you are logged out globally or locally then the question should make that very clear. Since it's not a particularly radical change you could just edit the question I supposed, although it's enough of a change that asking a new question isn't out of line either.
    – Servy
    Apr 24, 2013 at 14:46

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