Extracting passwords from Chrome | Hacker News Reader

Extracting passwords from Chrome

usvsth3m.com

2 pointsColinWright7 comments

It's the same with every other browser, for instance...

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/password-manager-rememb...

It's actually not the same with every other browser.

As far as I'm aware, Safari pulls the passwords from the keychain when necessary and does not provide plaintext access to them from inside the app.

It's obviously deliberate. Are you not familiar with OS level profiles? in the case of OSX: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11468 there is your master password.

Also the post you mention was already submitted and discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6165708

Are you suggesting making a separate user account for each person who uses Chrome, and then switching user accounts before allowing a new person to touch Chrome on your computer?

I often browse for things on my coworkers computers (their laptops), and they do on mine. An application shouldn't be pulling passwords out of the keychain and then making the plaintext available.

Yes, users should have separate accounts. This whole thing is like complaining that a user can browse your My Documents folder if you allow them to use your account. Of course they can, they're logged in to your account!

It's a good idea to have separate accounts. The issue is that many people aren't aware of this, and should be. Chrome is going with the assumption that people know about it.

I'd rather someone browsed My Documents than saw my password in plain text. I don't even like seeing my password in plain text.

It came as an unpleasant surprise to many of us, so I'm trying to point out to as many people as possible that this is the way Chrome does it.

Eh, you think that's scary - buy a brand new machine and log in to your Chrome account and see all those passwords (and bookmarks and browsing history) get slurped down from who knows where onto that machine.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com