Simplification for web site logins is desperately needed.  Once upon a time, people thought Open ID might be the solution, but it has fizzled out.  Where is the future?  The Firefox Account Manager.

The Account Manager is a prototype that really makes things easy when it comes to logging into your favorite web sites.  You can login and logout, right from the toolbar.

How Does Account Manager Work?

I will let the fine people at Mozilla Labs explain that one:

We are proposing a new standard that Websites can implement, and although it is still an early draft, we’d love for you to check it out. We are particularly interested in feedback from Web developers and site administrators.

If you’re interested in hacking on the add-on, you can check out the source here. The project wiki page also has additional information.

Right now, the prototype they have posted only works with Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Mozilla Addons, Mozilla Bugzilla, and Get Personas – but with time (they hope) every web site will support this new standard.  You can learn more about the Account Manager concept idea here:

• Account Manager Details at Mozilla Labs

Tell me what you think. Does this new concept excite you, or do you want to see it in action a ‘bit more before you make up your mind?

The master password in Firefox is used to add another layer of security to your password system.  What would happen though if you setup a master password, got in an accident, were in a coma for six months, and then once you awoke you couldn’t remember what your master password was set to?  I’ll help you reset or recover your Firefox master password with one simple tool.

Recover the Firefox Master Password with FireMaster

FireMaster claims to be the first ever tool built to recover the lost master password in Firefox.  In all honesty, you are really hacking yourself – because the tool uses a combination of techniques such as dictionary, hybrid and brute force to recover the master password from the Firefox key database file.  Desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures.

You can pick up your own version of the digital download here.

Resetting the Master Password in Firefox

When you reset the master password in Firefox, you will remove all the stored password information – so that is not a very good route to go, if you really need that login information back. 

With that warning said – point your browser towards:

chrome://pippki/content/resetpassword.xul

Copy and paste that into your address bar, then hit the Enter key. upon doing so you will be asked if you really want to reset the master password, and remove your stored information, passwords, private keys and more.  Click the Reset button to reset the Firefox master password for good.

So there you have two route to take next time you awake from your own six month coma. The best route of all to take would be do not forget your password, but if your finding this from a Google search – it might be too late for sage words.

Have you lost your master password?

If you want to add another layer of protection to your Firefox browser, you can turn on the master password option.  In short, this will allow you to secure your login information – especially if your PC is used by more than one person, so they can’t snoop through Firefox’s options and find your passwords.

Now if you find yourself not remembering your master password, there is an easy way to reset it.  There is a down side though, because resetting your master password will remove all of your saved user names and passwords. To start the process, copy and paste this location into your Firefox address bar:

chrome://pippki/content/resetpassword.xul

This is your “Reset Master Password” page.  For one more time, it warns you:

If you reset your master password, all your stored web and e-mail password, form data, personal certificates, and private keys will be forgotten. Are you sure you want to reset your master password?

Then you will be given the option to “Reset” or “Cancel”.  Hit the button labled “Reset” and your master password should be reset.

You can now search through your saved password information.  This is great for those of us who often forget what login we used with what web site and don’t want to go scroll happy going down the list to maybe find the right result.

To check it out, go to Tools, Options and then the Security Tab.  Then click on the “Saved Passwords…” button under the Passwords section. 

The rest of it is pretty self explanatory.  Type the phrase your looking for in the search box, and the list will get shorter. 

The CookiePie extension enables you to maintain different cookies storage in different tabs and windows. To give you a better idea of what that would look like in action the creators of the extension have put together a video of CookiePie in action.

All in all, I would say this extension looks very promising for those who need to do multiple logins to the same service with little to no problems at all. If you are interested, I would encourage you all to check out the official site for the extension so you can learn more about what CoookiePie could do for you.

Here is the post that got my attention on UserScripts.org:

Someone has been attempting to post scripts that steal cookies. Thanks to several alert us.o citizens (including davey, descriptor, loucypher, joel h, pogue) we have been able to note that the script is malicious and then delete them.

I’m putting up a banner to warn people that newly uploaded/updated scripts should be put under extra scrutiny.

I’ve also decreased the cache duration of rss feeds to 10 minutes, so if you keep an eye on http://userscripts.org/feeds/recent_scripts it will be a lot fresher than normal (it was cached for an hour)

So yes, everybody should be extra careful when downloading scripts like this – even if it is from a trusted source. I am happy to see the UserScripts.org team moved so quickly on this though. That makes me feel a lot better about my continued use of their Firefox extension.

Need Help? Be sure to check out the Beginner’s Guide to Greasemonkey!

Autofill Forms enables you to fill out web forms with one click or a keyboard shortcut. A set of customizable rules is used to determine the input for each form element. You are able to edit, remove, enable/disable the provided rules and to add your own ones. You can configure the order in which the rules are to be applied and define site specific rules.

I wouldn’t be relying on this extension to remember every single thing – but it does come in handy for the tedious stuff.