Google Chrome is getting an update that will warn you if any of your passwords are particularly weak, so you can change them before disaster strikes.
We all have a huge number of online accounts these days. From email accounts, social media and accounts with online stores, this means we all have a massive number of passwords to remember. To make life easier, web browsers have long offered to help us out by storing passwords so we don’t have to remember them.
But more than this, browser developers have recognised the fact that security incidents occur, websites are hacked, and password are leaks, so the likes of Chrome warn users about passwords that have been compromised. Now Chrome is taking things a step further.
Chrome’s Safety Check has been around for a while now, issuing warnings about potentially dangerous browser extensions, passwords that have been involved in a breach and other security issues. The latest change to this important safety feature sees the browser issuing a warning about weak passwords.
Even though the automatic password filling offered by modern browsers means that we no longer need to remember what our passwords are, there is still a tendency for people to create weak passwords out of habit. Now Chrome’s Safety Check will warn you if it considers any of your saved passwords to be weak.
Weak or strong?
While it is already possible to use Chrome’s password settings to track down weak passwords, Google is now making it accessible through Safety Check. For the time being, the option is only available in Chrome 89 (the current Canary build), but even with this version of the browser installed, you still need to enable the option manually.
- Launch Chrome and pay a visit to chrome://flags
- Search for Safety check for weak passwords and use the drop-down menu to enable the setting
- Repeat for Passwords weakness check
- Restart Chrome
Once that’s done, run Safety Check from within Chrome’s settings, and you’ll be warned about any passwords that need your attention.
Via Techdows
