this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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Actually it's an effective cloud-based password manager that doesn't rely on local storage or weird plugins or backups.
That's what keeps me using chrome. I could lose everything in a house fire, pick up any device, log in and have access to all my stuff without any further action on my part, right out of the box.
That's the only feature I care about, and chrome is the only browser I've seen that provides it.
Get me that in firefox, and I'll switch today.
What are you talking about? Firefox has had literally Sync since before Chrome existed.
A full year, my guy.
I'm confused since Firefox Sync has been letting you sync/backup your passwords, bookmarks and history for a decade or two at this point, and you can even self-host the sync server.
I don't know the complete FF password manager details (Bitwarden user here) but where does Firefox fall short for you?
You can lose your Google account in the blink of an eye with no recourse, no access to support or anything.
With local and my own backups, I can choose to put them at any location, cloud or local.
I have all that functionality today with FF... Not sure when you last checked, but if you create a Mozilla account and log in to FF you can sync all the same stuff as Chrome does.
Checked it out: apparently I had a mozilla account at one point in time. Hit 'forgot password':
Forgot your password: fuck you.
This is the exact fucking opposite of the behaviour I'd ever want from a password manager.
I think that's what most people want in a password manager. The only way to have a truly secure pw manager is to encrypt it and failsafe to delete. That way if your identity gets stolen or email compromised, it limits the damage.
Said another way: if a company offering a password manager can recover all your passwords with you just clicking "forgot password", that means they can read your passwords in plain text (and so can hackers if the company gets hacked).
Wait wait wait wait, you're telling me you want the people who hold your password to be able to view them without your explicit permission (entering a secret that unlocks your vault)? Because that's what you're asking for - if they can reset your password and provide you your plaintext passwords, that means they can 1) read your passwords if they chose to and 2) you can be phished and have your account stolen and passwords provided to some rando.
The convenience offered by that "feature" is outweighed by the potential consequences of it existing. Passwords should absolutely be a Trust No One (TNO) solution.
Pretty much every service on the internet does password-reset via a token sent to your mailbox, so if someone gets control of your mail, you're pretty much pwned anyway. It would be slower and more inconvenient for an attacker to reset everything individually, but I'm sure they can automate that.
This is just security theatre. Burning all my data makes my life a lot harder, but an attacker would barely notice.
If I can reset each individual credential via mail token, on the assumption that only the genuine owner has access to the mailbox, then I lose nothing by resetting access to the whole set of credentials via mail token, on that same assumption.
It's only security theater because you have this kind of mentality:
You're right that an attacker could reset everything if they had access to your primary email account, but 1) you should already have 2fa on that account to protect yourself, 2) losing access to your email would be a signal that something is wrong and gives you a chance to react before they have everything, and 3) there's a world of difference between having credentials immediately vs having to jump through hoops to reset stuff. Also:
Burning all your data means your attacker can't suddenly transfer the contents of your checking account away or buy all kinds of shit from trusted vendors just because they broke into one account. Security is about layered defense, not just giving the attacker keys to the kingdom because you couldn't remember one password.
Looks like you best get to switching.
That’s great until Google finds that one picture of your child at the pool and immediately deletes your CSAM-harboring filthy account.