security.)Įarlier question How secure are my passwords in the hands of Firefox using a Master Password? gives some guidance it says: most likely secure, but I would not use. Nevertheless, there is no care free approach for dealing with passwords. Using master password in Firefox or other browser is usually acceptable compromise.

You have been very thorough in considering downsides and benefits.

Can you provide some guidance on how to decide whether to use the option, from a security standpoint?.

Then on the bad side, if someone walked up to your computer just after you logged in to a gaming site, then they could probably pull up your banking password as your master password would still be in memory, would it not?Įither way, more in-depth attacks are equally capable of obtaining data regardless of which route you took?

On the good side, it helps prevent phishing because it checks the domain name automatically.Īlso, am I just imagining, or does it also make the attacker's job more difficult? (simple key-loggers are insufficient unless the Firefox data files are fetched as well) These days the passwords can be encrypted using a master password, so the primary problem is gone.

In the old days I would emphasize that people should not select the remember passwords option because (besides the fact you tend to forget what the browser remembers) a bad guy could display the password (if he knew how) and read it there, and then use it later.

One password firefox