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Don't use autofill in your browser

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Re: Don't use autofill in your browser

#41
I'm sorry, I've never used autocomplete for a few privacy related reasons, and this was one of them... this seems obvious, to the point where I thought the title was written in a sarcastic 'duh' tone...

I figured not letting your (google especially) browser store personal details was pretty much common privacy/security sense at this point.

Re: Don't use autofill in your browser

#43
post #35

That's a misuse for the term "autocomplete" in my opinion. What he complains about is "autofill", not "autocomplete" as I understand it. Autocomplete takes the values you used previously and gives you suggestions for the stuff you're typing in yourself. Autofill tries to guess what values are required and fills them in without additional interactions. They're very different mechanisms...

Fully agree, using "autocomplete" is misleading. The suggestions that go into auto-complete fields come from the server, autofill from the client.

You conflate autocompletion provided by the browser, based on values previously submitted in identically named fields, and autocompletion against values provided by the server.

Re: Don't use autofill in your browser

#44
post #37

Web devs can recommend input fields not use autocomplete: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_input_autocomplete.asp It's considered good practice to use it on login fields, but otherwise depends on whether you think security or user preference should take priority.

Users that find this "good practice" annoying can override it with a bookmarklet or extension: http://kb.mozillazine.org/User_name_and_password_not_remembe...

I've noticed with Firefox (17 ESR) that, having once used Firebug to delete the 'autocomplete="no"' attribute on a password field and then submitted the form, it's not necessary to do so again; in whatever heuristic Firefox uses to determine how to behave in that case, the existence of auto-completion data for the field apparently overrides the advice given by the attribute. For those leery of adding still more extensions to a Firefox profile already well larded with them, this may be useful information.

Re: Don't use autofill in your browser

#46
Firefox and the Mozilla Suite have had a very similar problem since at least 2005: it autofilled usernames and passwords, which creates a problem with XSS or user-generated content on the same domain. The bug was marked WONTFIX: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=280469

Re: Don't use autofill in your browser

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, and actually a pretty smart feature, but you have to take the time to double-check (which I suspect most users won't).

Usually I agree that people will blindly click through, but I don't see people clicking through this[1]. Especially if Safari said it would auto-fill your credit card number and you weren't buying anything? [1] https://www.evernote.com/shard/s356/sh/dcf7867e-eb16-4e0e-83...

My understanding is that even credit card information is only available if the person is specifically in a credit card field, and not just the name.

Re: Don't use autofill in your browser

#49
post #28

Web devs can recommend input fields not use autocomplete: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_input_autocomplete.asp It's considered good practice to use it on login fields, but otherwise depends on whether you think security or user preference should take priority.

An attacker that can make use of an auto-completing password field has got enough access to mean that the game is over anyway - they can get that password from a variety of other sources on the machine. Turning off autocomplete on login fields doesn't make that form more secure, and it does annoy users. As kalleboo says, it probably reduces security as your users change to easy to type passwords, or keep needing pass…

Sorry, there's a bit of misunderstanding here; I should have made it clearer. Password type fields shouldn't autocomplete on browsers anyway. The "good practice" I meant is for devs to set autocomplete off for the username field - to prevent the login username or email address popping up (especially if the site is accessed on public or shared computers).
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