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Protect Stored Passwords with Master Password in Firefox

November 28th, 2009

Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome ask you to remember passwords when you enter a form on a web page.

It is not advised to save password in the browser especially for highly sensitive data like bank account login password and email passwords especially if you are using a shared computer or browsing center.

In Internet Explorer it is easy to recover password with third party utilities like IE PassView. So it is better to ‘uncheck’ the remember password option in Internet Explorer.

master-password-firefoxIn Firefox you can protect all stored passwords with a Master Password.

Click on Tools->Options and tick the “Use Master Password” checkbox under the Security Tab and specify a Master Password.

So Firefox will ask for Master Password each time when it has to apply a saved password in a form and also asks the master password when somebody try to open the password manager.

But this also not fully foolproof as your password is stored in a file. Even though it is encrypted chances are there that with the help of some malware programs malicious codes a hacker may break that file. Or if somebody gets your master password then you will loose all your passwords.

If you forget your master password in firefox then you can reset it with this

chrome://pippki/content/resetpassword.xul

Just type this in your firefox address bar to reset the Master Password. But remember if you reset the master password then firefox will remove all stored password, forms data, personal certificates, private keys etc associated with that master password.

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