Chrome Team Experiments with Updated Password Manager

Despite all the headlines generated by security breaches where hackers gain access to personal and business information and data, the biggest problem on the security front remains people. Among many careless practices that lots of people have, they often don't set strong passwords or vary their passwords.

For a long time, there have been popular password management tools, with KeePass being an example of a very strong open source password application.  Now, the Google Chrome team is experimenting with smarter ways for users to handle passwords. The latest Canary build of Chrome has an updated Password Manager tool that automatically suggests use of a strong password every time users encounter web forms requiring creation of new passwords.

The strong passwords will also be recorded, as Google's Francois Beaufort notes in a post:

"The Chrome Password Generation feature we've stumbled upon long time ago has now a brand new UI enabled behind the two experimental chrome://flags/#enable-password-generation and _chrome://flags/#enable-save-password-bubble flags in Chrome Canary."

"Give it a try and go to any 'sign up' page. As soon as you focus the password field, a nice overlay will suggest you a strong and pronounceable password that will be saved in your chrome passwords."

This is a smart move from the Chrome team. Chromium, the open source core of the Chrome browser, has had password generation features for a couple of years, but nothing as accessible as what appears to be coming to Chrome.

Occasionally, the Google team experiments with tools in Canary builds and then shelves them, but it appears that the strong password management features will arrive in the production release of the increasingly popular browser.

Chrome has moved past Firefox to take second place in desktop browser market share, according to web traffic stats from Net Applications. In March, Chrome grabbed 17.5 percent of desktop brower traffic, while Firefox sat in third place with 17.2 percent.  That marked the first time that Chrome's share surpassed Firefox's.