Forgot Your Favorite Web Site Password?

How many times has this occurred? You find a great web site, but it requires an account before you can access the site. So you create the account, password and secret question and let FireFox remember the account information. Time goes by and your at work or on another computer, and decide that you want to visit that great site, but can’t remember the password.

Sure you can have the site email your password, but it also wants you to answer the secret question. Now what? Time to dig into FireFox Password Manager….

Just go to Tools, Options and click on the Security Tab then click on Show Passwords (version 2.0 shown below) or View Saved Passwords (version 1.5 not shown) button.

You will see two columns, one for the Site and another for your Username. To view your passwords, click on the Show Passwords button and answer Yes to show your passwords.

The third column will list all passwords that have been saved…including the web site that you forgot!

Password Manager is a handy tool to use, but keep in mind, there are some potential security issues you should be aware of:

* Never let anyone access your computer un-attended. Doing so, will give them access to your account info as shown above.

* Make sure you are running the latest stable version of Firefox included any security updates.

* If you keep backups of your Firefox profile, keep it secure since Password Manager stores the data in a file. Although it is difficult to read, it’s not impossible to crack.

* Don’t use Password Manager for personal or banking/credit card sites (some banking/credit card sites by default don’t give you the option).

* Use “Password Never Saved” setting in Password Manager for sites you don’t trust or do not want to save passwords.