SillyDog701

[James]

Help me understand this business of PW managers and the manner in which FF stores its passwords under a Master PW.

Currently I use the extension Lastpass to store my passwords. The advantages are: 1) each PW is unique and strong (about forty of them which I could never remember otherwise); 2) the PW are stored on "their" servers in encrypted form so even if their servers were hacked, the PW would still be protected at least until they regained control of their servers AND LP does not have the master PW so even they cannot read my PW; 3) my PW are synced to my other devices (ipad, laptop) by my simply installing LP and logging into it with my master PW; 4) my PW are easily changed and on a regular basis since LP makes this process so easy.

The only disadvantage to date is that in IE LP forces me to have an extra toolbar in order to work whereas in FF or Chrome it is a simple button that adds to my taskbar.

Now... some still argue that having one's passwords stored on a server rather than one's own computer is putting them at risk. I will add that my banking and amazon pw are NOT stored anywhere but are in my mind. Still... I can partially see their argument against LP and Roboform managers.

NOW... compare the above to Firefox. As I understand it, the passwords are stored on my own computer in encrypted form and under a master password... correct? Would they easily sync with my other devices? Would they be considered safer from hacking than they are currently on LP or Roboform? What are the advantages to letting FF do this rather than an extension like LP?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:7.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/7.0.1

[Antony]

I know I told you I would give Lastpass a try, but I haven't.

As for the worry on storing the passwords on the cloud, as long as it is properly encrypted, I don't see the need to worry that much. Of course, some other people (like Don) would be able to tell you all the risks and disadvantages of doing so.

I am same with you. I don't save my banking passwords on Yojimbo. Yojimbo stores encrypted passwords in my local Macs, as well as a copy stored in Apple's sync service.

Would they easily sync with my other devices?

This depends on the support of the software.

Would they be considered safer from hacking than they are currently on LP or Roboform? What are the advantages to letting FF do this rather than an extension like LP?

Is your own computer safer? Usually yes. However, there are some home computers being compromised without owner's knowledge. If the password server was compromised, it would be a big news for sure.

As for the built-in password feature on Firefox, don't forget that there's a huge brand loyalty to it when you read reviews.

(Posted from Apple Store)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_7) AppleWebKit/534.48.3 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Safari/534.48.3