2008/08/18

Daily Gyan

Force Firefox To Remember Password Of Sites Like Paypal

Posted: 18 Aug 2008 04:06 AM CDT

Firefox has a pretty nifty password manager. When you login to any web site, Firefox offers to save your user name and password. The next time you visit that page, user name and password fields are auto completed for you. A real time-saver.

But have you ever wondered why this doesn't work in certain sites? For instance, Firefox doesn't offer to save password if you login to Yahoo, delicious, paypal and a large number of banking sites.

This is because these sites request Firefox not to save passwords through a special flag: autocomplete="off". When a web site sets this flag, it is an indication to the browser not to save the entered values. Therefore, Firefox being a good lamb, turns off the auto complete feature and saving of passwords in such web sites. However, in today's Daily Feature, we show you how to bypass such a flag and force Firefox to save passwords of all sites.

But before you start this, be warned that this can become a security risk. Giving your bank password to Firefox's password manager wouldn't be a smart move considering the many password manager related vulnerabilities that we saw last year.

Here is what you should do:

Close any instance of Firefox.
Open up C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components\nsLoginManager.js using notepad. (Change the location to where you have installed Firefox)
Search for the line: _isAutocompleteDisabled : function (element) {
Delete the three lines after this line.

In our Firefox installation, these lines were at line number: 725, 726 and 727. Take a look at the screen shots below for more details.

Before:

After:

Now fire up Firefox and test whether it is saving all passwords, as expected.

Questions, queries, suggestions? Post a comment.

Drag and Drop.io Makes File Sharing Child’s Play [Web Apps Gyan]

Posted: 17 Aug 2008 11:30 PM CDT

Drop.io wants to become the simplest file sharing method in the net.

With the release of their new Firefox addon aptly named 'Drag and Drop.io' , they have made file sharing more simpler and have taken Drop.io a long way ahead in becoming the simplest way to share files.

Haven't heard about Drop.io? Then checkout this video.

In essence, you can create upload locations in Drop.io, that are called drop points. Your drop point can be private, public or accessible to a few using a password.

The cool thing about the new Firefox addon is that, you don't have to visit the Drop.io site anymore to create and share a drop point. Instead just drag the files that you want On timer upload into the Firefox window over the Red dot that sits in the status bar. The addons creates a new drop point for you on the fly and uploads the files to that drop point.

Try this addon. It's a real time saver. Get it here. (Direct download link)