This was actually what made me decide to start a blog again, the fact that Mozilla Firefox stores all of your saved passwords, and by default leaves the door wide open for prying eyes. With so many websites begging us to log in these days even some of the most privacy-minded of us tend to use the “Remember My Password” function in firefox. I stand by this feature, because without it, i would be lost when it comes to remembering passwords that I use but once or twice a year.
The danger with this however, is that someone need only to open up firefox’s options –> security: show passwords, and all of your usernames and their passwords are in plain sight. This is particularly dangerous in multiuser environments like on family computers, or public spaces like the office or the college dorms where there are plenty of people who need only the desire, and your identity is theirs. The solution? Aside from abandoning the bult-in password organizer, use the “Master Password” feature. I’ve been using this since I can remember and would never consider saving passwords where they are so easily discovered. Now that Firefox 3 has steamlined the password management, feel free to take advantage of it while still retaining your security.
