If you’re really concerned about privacy and the protection of your personal information, I suggest you don’t let Google Chrome handle your passwords. Many people are thus unwittingly trading off the security of their data for the convenience of not routinely entering their passwords every time. Bam! They have just obtained usernames and passwords to your online accounts and who knows what they may do with them. Somehow they proceed to go to Google Chrome’s password management page and click “Show” on the passwords fields. So imagine this scenario: a colleague or friend asks to look at a file on your computer and you oblige because it’s not a big deal. I doubt it’s a lot of us and I have many friends who do not even have their computers password protected. If we’re to be really honest though, how many of us can claim to be the sole users of our computers or that we have really strong passwords or that we vigilantly monitor the activities of everybody who uses our computers. Of course, we can start arguing about how your computer should always be protected with a strong password and how you should ensure that it doesn’t get into the wrong hands. That is really not a comforting fact considering that it is really easy for someone to gain access to your computer. However, in doing so, it strips out any other layers of security that you may have on your accounts, delegating the security solely to your computer. In effect, Google Chrome eagerly offers to store your passwords for you, on the premise that it offers you the convenience of not having to retype your user details every time. The really interesting thing here is that if you click the “Show” button in the password field, it will show your password, without any further security promptings. However, if you go to Google Chrome’s settings, there’s an option to “Manage saved password” which will take you to the following screen. If you’ve used Google Chrome before, you may have noticed that it is pretty eager to store your passwords for you, offering to do so whenever you enter user data into any form as the screenshot below shows. The novel capabilities come months after Google announced biometric passkeys support for Android and Chrome devices.I use Google Chrome for practically all my web browsing, and a few days ago I made a startling discovery after reading this article: Google Chrome’s password security really sucks! Seriously, it’s like taking your password and placing it as a screensaver where anybody who has access to your computer can see it if they only looked. “You’ll be able to set up Face ID to protect the privacy of your Google app so that if someone has your device, they won’t be able to open it and gain access to your data,” reads the blog post.īoth biometric features are not widely available yet, but Google confirmed they will be rolled out to all supported devices in the “coming weeks.”Īdditional features unveiled in the blog post include virtual card numbers, an expanded SafeSearch setting, a new partnership with the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA), and a new YouTube Kids Playlist. Google also confirmed that the capability could be used to reveal, copy or edit passwords saved via the Google Password Manager in both Chrome and Android (without typing in a computer password).įurther, the tech giant writes that it will soon add a new layer of biometric security to the Google app for iOS devices. “Now, for supported computers, we’re adding the option to use biometric authentication (to verify it’s you) before filling your saved password.”
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