Safety of Saving Passwords in Firefox?

[ghostowl]

I am curious to know how safe it is to allow Firefox to remember my passwords for websites as opposed to typing in my username and password each time I visit a site. Is this safe, or a bad idea security-wise? Or is it worse to type in my password each time?

Thanks!

Sandy

[Nokia]

If you want absolute security it would be best to type it in each time or use an encrypted password manager application.

You can use a program such as Cain and Abel to retrieve any passwords / auto complete data stored by IE but AFAIK it does not work against Firefox - I could be wrong though.

If you store anything like this, it is stored in the registry sometimes hashed somethimes not depending what you store and what application stored it, so it will be available locally for retrival and decrypting should someone want to spend the time doing it.

[Black Cluster]

Your brain box is the safest place to save your passwords in. ---> Common Security Rule ...

Yes use firefox to save non-of-critical-importance passwords, like your online radio station password, passwords for websites that reqire regestiration {Free} before being able to download, papers, songs .... this just to through the burden of memorizing dozens of passwords ....

WARNING: Never ever use one { Or unified Scheme} password for all accounts, here i'm addressing the critical password ..... for instance, don't use the same password for your remote access server and your free email service ....

Cheers

[ghostowl]

as I had been using a scheme of passwords, but now I have changed that. So for things such as bank account access, credit card access, etc., I should never save those, and they should have different complex passwords if I am understanding correctly.

Thanks for helping out the newbie!

[ghostowl]

You said: "You can use a program such as Cain and Abel to retrieve any passwords / auto complete data stored by IE"

Does this mean when I go to IE Tools/Internet Options/Content/Autocomplete and press the Clear Passwords button I still need another program to make sure all of these passwords are cleared?

[brokencrow]

I disable the password savers in both Firefox and Opera.

First, the nag screen asking me to save drives me nuts. Second, regularly using my passwords improves my memory. And finally, why let anyone using your PC stray into one of your password-protected sites?

...I still need another program to make sure all of these passwords are cleared?

Try Ccleaner. Make sure to check the "Autocomplete Form History" box under Internet Explorer section (disabled by default). Ccleaner's a good app for Windows cleanups.

[Nokia]

You said: "You can use a program such as Cain and Abel to retrieve any passwords / auto complete data stored by IE"

Does this mean when I go to IE Tools/Internet Options/Content/Autocomplete and press the Clear Passwords button I still need another program to make sure all of these passwords are cleared?

Cain is a program that can reveal any saved passwords/user names etc - once they have been deleted it is unable to collect the data, so your safe once you have deleted them.

Ive attached two screen shots to show you what I mean.

The first one has my user name as passwords to www.tazforum.**********.com which is an awesome IT help site that you should go and join imediatley!

The second is after I have deleted all my saved user names and passwords from IE - as you can see they have dissapeared!

So ya safe once you've deleted them!

[Info Tech Geek]

No, because the passwords saved in FireFox can be viewed by anyone with access to the computer in plain text. I always check the saved passwords in FireFox. My stepsister kept thinking someone was hacking her MySpace, I just kept playing with it until she finally changed her password.

[c0br4]

Finding out passwords saved in firefox is as easy as tools>options>privacy>passwords>view saved passwords>show passwords, and voila a complete list of usernames and passwords with the site they belong to, I do tell firefox to save my non-vital passwords, however i also set a master password for the saved passwords, this is a great little feature what it means is everytime when you first start firefox, before it will show any passwords using the method above, or enter any passwords into a site for you it asks you for a password which you just enter once until you close firefox down and start it again. I don't know if this hashes/encrypts your password list though. If you want to do this go to tools>options>privacy>passwords>set master password