Privacy concerns while waiting for new machine

[gigatoaster]

Hello there

I started a new job but they forgot to order my new machine so I’m using my personal computer in the meantime.

I have some privacy concerns and I’m scared stuff will get messed up with my other stuff from my personal life. I like to have a clear boundary between work stuff and personal stuff.

My main concern is that at work we use Google stuff and I really can’t stand their business model. I do use only one gmail inbox as I was obliged to create a different email address once and Google News on my personal laptop (via Opera).

So far, I used Google Gmail, Calendar, Slack, Okta and the company dashboard though my browser (Opera). The only app I used was Zoom, which I installed before to do interviews at other companies and this one.

Is it sufficient just to clear data, cookies and cache or do I need a different tool to really delete everything, especially the Google stuff? It asked for a huge amount of permissions but I read them too fast…

Also I might ditch Opera for Brave, is it a good idea?

 

[HDFan]

Could you create another user on your Mac to use when doing work related things? That will keep a lot of things separate.

 

[Ruggy]

Create another user as has been said.
I use Brave sometimes and I have no problem with it.

 

[Boyd01]

Have you tried the direct approach and told your employer you aren't comfortable using your own computer? Perhaps they can loan you something until your new one arrives? Seems rather unreasonable for them to expect you to use your personal machine for work.

 

[velocityg4]

If you are still on an Intel Mac. Install Virtual Box. Then run Windows in a VM to do all your work. That'll keep everything separate and won't cost anything.

Since everything is browser base. You could also just run a light Linux in a VM. Such as Lubuntu.

Although really, since it's all browser based. You should be safe just using a different web browser for work only. Privacy concerns come in if you have to use their VPN to get on their network and mount their network drives. Along with installing various software which you don't know what it's looking at on your computer. But a VM will give the highest reasonable degree of privacy.

 

[gigatoaster]

Thanks. But I received a loaner, a 16” i9 from 2019. That machine is beautiful I’m very impressed!

So now can I just delete cache/data/cookies or do I need to use additional software to delete everything, on my personal laptop?

I’m afraid all google stuff will be persistent.

 

[gigatoaster]

So I deleted Opera cache files and profile in Application Support. I uninstalled Opera.

I also switched to Firefox as Opera was showing a crash window on 2 different machines, which is unrelated to my initial issue.

I resigned & will be starting a new job again next week. As I will get this time most probably a windows machine, I’ll use again my personal MacBook Pro but this time I will listen to you and create a different user profile.

Can I copy/paste documents from user profile 1 to user profile 2, by the way?