If you are like that a lot of people, someone probably urged you to use a password manager and you still haven’t heeded the advice. Chrome and Edge now help with optimized password management built directly into browsers.
Microsoft on Thursday announced a new password generator for the recently released Edge 88. People can use the generator when signing up for a new account or changing an existing password. The generator provides a drop-down list in the password field. If you click on the candidate, it selects it as a password and saves it in a password manager built into the browser. People can then push the password to other devices using the Edge Password Sync feature.
As I’ve explained for years, the same things that make passwords memorable and easy to use are the same things that make them easy to guess. Password generators are among the most reliable sources of strong passwords. Instead of having to think of a truly unique and hard-to-guess password, users can instead have a generator that does it right.
“Microsoft Edge offers a powerful built-in password generator that you can use when you sign up for a new account or change an existing password,” wrote members of the Microsoft Edge team. “Just look for the browser-suggested password drop-down menu in the password field, and when it’s selected, it will be automatically saved in the browser and synced between devices for easy future use.”
Edge 88 also launches a feature called Password Monitor. As the name suggests, it monitors saved passwords to ensure that none of them are included in lists compiled from website compromises or phishing attacks. When enabled, the password monitor will alert users when a password matches lists published online.
Checking passwords securely is a difficult task. The browser should be able to verify a password with a large, ever-changing list without sending sensitive information to Microsoft or information that could be sniffed by someone monitoring the connection between the user and Microsoft. In an accompanying post also published on Thursday, Microsoft explained exactly how this was done.
Not to be outdone, members of the Google Chrome team this week unveiled their own password protections. The main one is a full-function password manager, which is built into the browser.
“Chrome may already ask you to update your saved passwords when you sign in to websites,” Chrome team members wrote. “However, you may want to update multiple usernames and passwords easily in one convenient place. That’s why, starting with Chrome 88, you can manage all your passwords even faster and easier in Chrome settings on your desktop and iOS (the Android app for Chrome will get this feature soon, too). ”
Chrome 88 also makes it easier to check if saved passwords have been cleared in password stores. While password auditing came to Chrome last year, the feature can now be accessed using a security check.
Many people feel more comfortable using a dedicated password manager because it offers more features than those baked in their browser. Most dedicated managers, for example, make it easier to use the words of the dice in a safe way. Once the line between browsers and password managers begins to blur, it’s probably only a matter of time before browsers offer more advanced management capabilities.
This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
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