But if it re-logs you back in when you re-open the browser, it may be technically a different cookie, but it is a cookie with your real identity attached to it (as opposed to an anonymous cookie like if you started a fresh session on an older version of the browser). So practically, that has the same effect that if the cookie was never deleted.
The parent means, logging out and staying logged out of the browser, would have exactly the same behaviour as logging out of your Google Account would in Firefox.
The whole point of the feature was just that:
1. “are you logged into your Google Account from the perspective of Gmail et al” is now the thing the browser chrome itself reports; and
2. you now need to be logged into your Google Account in the cookies sense for Chrome sync to function; logging out of your Google Account turns off Chrome sync.
Before, people could be in a state where they have Chrome sync enabled with foo@gmail, but are not logged into foo@gmail from a cookies perspective, and are potentially even logged into bar@gmail.
This is the state that has been eliminated—now, the browser chrome’s login state reflects your Google Account web-cookie login state, because they’re one-and-the-same; and every method that logs you out of your Google account from a web-cookie perspective, also logs you out of Chrome (and vice-versa.)
Consider the privacy implications of someone who logs out of Gmail, but is still logged into Chrome sync as said Gmail user; and then lets someone else use the computer. That is what is no longer possible.
It’s a privacy improvement targeted at the people who expect “logging out” of their Google account to be one unilateral action that frees a computer of all artifacts related to their original logging-in. Which, until recently, wasn’t true: if you originally logged in by entering your credentials into the “new Chrome profile wizard” (where they set up the credential as both your synnc and web-cookie credential), and then logged out of one, it wouldn’t affect the other.
No, I mean you can log out of your Google account in the browser and it actually logs you out. Deleting your cookies does re-create a cookie (which is weird), but logging out in browser (I see it as "Exit Joshua" on Chrome on OSX) deletes Google cookies and doesn't recreate any.
