Google Chrome has remained in limelight for the last couple of days because of the way it saves password in its browser. As we know, anyone with access to your computer can go to settings and view your saved passwords in Chrome. According to some people, Chrome should improve the way it saves passwords, with something like a master password which only the admin would know.
If you look at Firefox, then it does offer users an option to protect all passwords with a master password that prevents access to all passwords until the master password is entered. In Chrome, there’s no such option, unfortunately.
Chrome, at the moment, saves passwords in such a way that anyone who has got access to the system can view passwords, and there’s no way to protect our precious passwords. Google on the other hand defends itself by saying that if a person has got physical access to the computer, then it’s already too late. While we’re not here to argue who’s right and who’s wrong, there are still many people who want to protect their passwords in some way or the other.
Let’s say your family shares a single computer (which is not unlikely in less developed countries), and in such a case, parents may store passwords in Chrome. But when the same computer is used by kids, they can easily view the passwords and may take advantage of it. Let’s first learn how to view saved passwords in Chrome:
- Click on the menu button on Chrome and select Settings.
- Click on Show advanced settings from the bottom of the screen.
- Scroll down to Passwords and forms settings and then on “Manage saved passwords.”
- On this screen, you’ll be able to see all websites where you’ve saved the password. Hover over a password and click on “show” to reveal the password. Well, that wasn’t that hard, was it?
That’s why, if you’re really concerned about the way how Chrome saves passwords in plain text readily accessible to anyone, you should STOP saving passwords in Chrome. That’s the only way to protect your passwords. To do this, from the preferences page, uncheck “Offer to save passwords I enter on the web.” This will prevent Chrome from offering you any option to save the password.
Use Last Pass to save passwords in Chrome
If you’re really, really, concerned and want to save passwords in Chrome anyway, then start using Last Pass. Last Pass is a password manager which also offers a Chrome extension that comes with many features like protecting passwords with master password, syncing password across different web browsers, save form data, and more.
So if you don’t trust Chrome’s inbuilt password saving feature, then you should try out Last Pass. It might take some time setting it up, but once you’re done with it, you’ve got your passwords protected.
Right now the only way to protect passwords in Chrome is not to save passwords in Chrome. Instead, use something like Last Pass.
