Get Secure: 5 Firefox Addons For Serious Password Management

Passwords are the Achilles heel of your online privacy and security.

Passwords are the Achilles heel of your online privacy and security. Presently, passwords are the essentially the only way to access online accounts and with the diversity of login information to keep track of, the average user has to manage an arsenal of safe passwords. However, coping with dozens of complicated character strings isn’t a task that needs to be done manually. There are many tools that can assist you in managing our passwords and the most convenient ones are embedded right where you need them: in your browser.

We have recently published an article to walk you through the procedure of how to Use A Password Management Strategy To Simplify Your Life. In this article I focus on addons that take the suggested tools and add them directly to your favorite browser, i.e. Firefox.

Enhance The Default Password Manager with Saved Password Editor

Firefox has an internal password manager, which is a good alternative if you want to stay on the lean side with addons. You can enable it under > Firefox > Options > Security . Set the check next to > Remember passwords for sites . You can also set a master password (highly recommended) and view saved passwords. Obviously, the features are quite limited. Most annoyingly, you cannot manually add passwords or edit existing entries.

Saved Password Editoradds the following functions to Firefox’ default password manager:

open Saved Passwords dialog via toolbar button manually add and edit new entries

If the toolbar button isn’t added automatically, right-click on your toolbar and select > Customize… Locate the button, drag and drop it to the desired location, and click > Done to save your changes.

Store Passwords Locally in the KeePass Password Safe using KeeFox

If you are already using KeePass or if you prefer to store your passwords locally, get KeeFox to connect Firefox to your KeePass Password Safe.

adds KeeFox toolbar installs open source KeePass Password Safe (unless installed already) reads and writes passwords to local KeePass Password Safe passwords available to all applications on your computer sort login data by categories

A detailed KeeFox tutorial can be found here: KeeFox Tutorial

Store Passwords Online with LastPass Password Manager

The tool I am personally using to manage my passwords is LastPass. This online password manager comes with many great features and conveniently offers addons for various browser, including Firefox.

store passwords online, allowing you to access and manage them from multiple locations single click login store multiple usernames and passwords for same website organize stored passwords in groups manage forms

We have previously introduced Last Pass here: Securely Synchronize Your Browser Passwords With LastPass

Alternatives to KeeFox / KeePass and LastPass that offer Firefox addons have been reviewed in detail here:

Create Safe Passwords with LastPass or pwgen

Now that you have hopefully figured out how to best store your passwords, it’s time to talk about safe passwords. After all, who needs a password manager, if all their passwords are the same. If you are truly serious about security, you should have a different password for every single account. You can use a system to create these passwords yourself. If you are willing to rely on a password manager, however, you can use a random password generator.

If you decided to go with LastPass as your password manager, click [ALT] + [G] or access the password generator through the LastPass toolbar button and then go to > Tools > Generator Secure Password . Using advanced options you can define password length and other characteristics that affect the strength of the generated password.

If you are looking for a standalone tool, try pwgen. This password generator addon has the following features:

toolbar button showing a red on black P clicking the button creates and instant password and copies it to clipboard ability to customize default options, including password length or special characters used

Prefer to create passwords manually? Get ideas from these articles:

How do you manage your passwords and what other Firefox addons would you add to the list?

Image credits: Password Button via Shutterstock

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