browsers – Techodyssey

A Chrome Password Problem

I found a strange issue with Google Chrome and its saved password list. Chrome will save passwords and you can view the list of passwords that have been saved. If you change a password it will remember the new password and use it to log you into the site. However I found that if you view the password list it shows the previous password not the updated password.

To explain that a little more clearly, say you set up an account at a site with your username and a password of “abc123”. Then you realise that that isn’t a good password and so change it to “xyz321”. You can log out of the site and next time you try to log in, Chrome will autofill the username and password boxes with the current password. However if you look at Chrome’s settings – advanced – manage passwords, it will still show the original value of “abc123” in the password field.

I tried a few things, including resetting the Chrome profile, which is the Chrome help site’s fallback fix for everything, but they didn’t work. The only thing that did work was to delete all the displayed passwords for that site from Chrome’s settings screen. Then log in to the site again, Chrome still remembered the login credentials even though I had deleted everything that was displayed. Then the saved password list was updated and I could view the current password.

A rather strange issue I know. I should mention that I use the beta version of Chrome so that maybe part of the problem but hopefully this will help someone else.

Browsing

I haven’t been here for a while, I know, so here is something I’ve found recently. I have been using Firefox as my main browser since before it reached ver 1 but lately I felt it was getting slower. I have tried a few others, Konquerer, the default browser on KDE is quite good but had some problem with a couple of sites. I really liked Arora but I had become addicted to some of the add-ons in Firefox and Arora is a no frills browser.

Then I found Chrome by Google. Chrome is based on the open source Chromium and is easily the fastest browser I have used. It is still in beta, well it is a Google product, but I’ve found it quite stable.

Best of all it has most of the popular extensions that have made Firefox so powerful. Some of them are also still in development. I’ve had problems syncing with Xmarks, for example. I replaced the Gmail signature add-on I was using with Autopen which is much better. One disappointment is that Cooliris is only available for Windows at the moment. A linux and Mac version has been promised for a while but is still to appear.

I’ve had no problem getting You Tube to work and downloads seem to be handled better than Firefox too. One thing I would like to change is to have Chrome more integrated into the desktop. It doesn’t pick up display properties from the desktop but uses it’s own. Still I would recommend it, give it a try.

Browser Sync Finished?

The Google Operating System blog reports that Google is to discontinue its popular Browser Sync Firefox extension. It is a convenient tool that allows you to access your Browser bookmarks, cookies, history and passwords on multiple computers or as in my case multiple OSes on a dual boot computer. There is no official announcement yet from Google but if the reports are correct Browser will not be updated for Firefox 3 and server support will end at the end of 2008.

While I can understand the reluctance to rewrite the extension for the new version of Firefox I will miss it. I have found it reliable and extremely convenient. There are alternatives of course but nothing which offers the same combination of services.

Follow the link for the full story and links to alternatives.