Let Firefox Manage Your Passwords for You
Posted on April 27, 2010 at 6:23 am
If you spend a significant amount of time online, you have likely amassed a lot of passwords for accessing shopping, entertainment, and other websites. The number of these passwords can become unwieldy forcing many people to simply use the same password for all of the websites they visit.
Using the same password to gain access to all of your favorite websites is a security risk because anyone who learns of your password can easily gain access to your private information. This is especially true if you regularly shop and do online backing over the web.
Firefox has a built in feature that can help you manage all of your online passwords by remembering them for you. In addition, you can set a master password so you don’t have to remember every password for each website.
Setup Password Management in Firefox
To start using Firefox password management, begin by opening up Firefox and clicking on Tools>Options. Click on the Security tab and you’ll notice a section of the window titled Passwords.
Check the option titled Remember Passwords for Sites and Firefox will begin remembering the passwords you use on the various websites you visit with the browser. Notice that the Exceptions button becomes available when you choose to let Firefox remember your passwords.
The Exceptions button opens up another windows where you can specify for which websites Firefox should not remember passwords. This option is great for people who want Firefox to remember everyday passwords but do not want the browser remembering passwords for sites such as banks, shopping, or other websites that collect personal and financial information about the visitor.
Once Firefox is remembering your passwords, you can click the Saved Passwords button at any time and view the list of sites, usernames, and passwords stored by the browser. If you have a lot of saved passwords, you can even use the Search box to search for your password in case you need it.
The problem with having Firefox remember website passwords is that anyone who sits down in front your computer will have access to your information on those sites. Therefore, you can assign a master password allowing you to have different passwords for each site but one master password to unlock those sites without having to memorize them all.
Check the Use A Master Password option and Firefox will open a dialog box asking for some information. If you don’t currently have a master password set, Firefox will ask you to type in a new master password and re-enter that password to verify it. Firefox will even evaluate your master password and tell you how secure it is using a quality meter.
Be sure to remember, write down, and/or store this master password in a safe place because if you forget it,
you will not be able to access any of the information protected by it
as Firefox clearly declares.
Besides being a convenient feature, having Firefox remember your website passwords can increase your security for two reasons. First, it lets you avoid having to use the same password for every website that requires a password.
Second, you don’t have to keep a list of passwords nearby your computer just so you can access your favorite websites. Such lists represent serious security issues is someone were to see or steal that list of passwords.
» Filed Under Computer Tips
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nice post. but is there a security risk in having Firefox store all my passwords?