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Better control of when master password dialog appears?

Fnord
Fnord
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I understand the need to ask for the Master Password to unlock saved credentials and allow synchronization. However, for many quick browsing session, I require neither capability. Instead, every time I start Firefox, I am pestered with one (or multiple) password dialogs. Often, these appear after I have already started to type into one of the other text entry boxes, in some cases even stealing keyboard focus from each other.

Is there a way (extension/add-on?) to allow Firefox to non-instrusively indicate its interest in me entering a password (e.g., show a small icon in the status bar), which I could then explicitly click to show the dialog for entering the master password in the cases where I know that it will needed?

Altertatively, can I start Firefox with a command-line switch that will suppress all master password requests for this session?

Note that I do not want to lose either the sync capability nor the saved passwords in general. I just want to not be pestered with the master password when I know that I won't require either feature in the current session.

I understand the need to ask for the Master Password to unlock saved credentials and allow synchronization. However, for many quick browsing session, I require neither capability. Instead, every time I start Firefox, I am pestered with one (or multiple) password dialogs. Often, these appear after I have already started to type into one of the other text entry boxes, in some cases even stealing keyboard focus from each other. Is there a way (extension/add-on?) to allow Firefox to non-instrusively indicate its interest in me entering a password (e.g., show a small icon in the status bar), which I could then explicitly click to show the dialog for entering the master password in the cases where I know that it will needed? Altertatively, can I start Firefox with a command-line switch that will suppress all master password requests for this session? Note that I do not want to lose either the sync capability nor the saved passwords in general. I just want to not be pestered with the master password when I know that I won't require either feature in the current session.

All Replies (1)

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 10 Contributor
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I'm not aware of any built-in setting or command-line switch for this. I have not searched the add-ons site to see whether an add-on can make the dialog non-modal or open in the background; it might require changes to Firefox itself.

Currently, many Firefox notifications and interactions are getting built into the "i" icon area on the address bar, but those tend to be page-specific. I'm not sure where Firefox is or will or should be displaying notifications for background tasks, but perhaps the way new updates generate a clickable desktop notification could be a model? For example: "Sync paused waiting for Master Password" at some interval appropriate for the urgency of the service.

You can make general features suggestions here (click the sad face):

https://input.mozilla.org/feedback/firefox

There are mailing lists to raise discussion issues with developers and UI folks here:

https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo (not sure which is best to start, maybe Sync?)

And if you want to file a bug to request a feature you can do that here:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi