Save web site usernames but not passwords in Firefox

Quick summary: I want Firefox to remember and autofill usernames, but not save passwords.

Since a lot of web sites use email addresses as usernames and I regularly use a disposable email address service, I have a lot of different usernames on a lot of different web sites, and they are impossible to remember.

I would like Firefox to remember and autofill the username I use on each site, but I don't really want it to remember my passwords. I just really dislike the idea of a computer remembering my passwords for me, plus if I get in the habit of that, I'm more likely to forget them and be unable to log in from anywhere but my accounts, whereas I don't mind a computer remembering my usernames and email addresses.

The default Firefox "Remember search and form history" doesn't meet my criteria because it will present data as suggestions that I've entered on other web sites, and my DEAs are random collections of numbers and letters. I wouldn't have to remember random strings of characters, but I would have to remember which random string is which, and there's only marginal benefit to that.

Does anyone have any suggestions? An extension seems like an appropriate solution, but I'm open to anything faster than what I'm doing now, which is to log into my DEA service and search for the email address.

wfaulk

Posted 2009-09-28T15:35:17.710

Reputation: 5 692

Answers

You should look at the add-on lastpass.

This keeps all your passwords online and encrypted so only you can access them. However, they're accessible anywhere in the world.
It has too much functionality to detail here, but is quite complete regarding features.
Available for Windows, Mac and Linux, in my experience it's the best password manager.

harrymc

Posted 2009-09-28T15:35:17.710

Reputation: 306 093

I checked this out. It does look nice. And you can get it to not store passwords. Or, rather, you can delete them after you store them the first time. (I suppose I could set up sites manually.) But, for whatever reason, if there's no password, it refuses to autofill. I think I might submit them a bug report/feature request. – wfaulk – 2009-09-28T17:45:48.883

After the form is submitted, lastpass asks whether to store the pw, not now, or never. If you wish an add-on that remembers all form fields, you can also use "Lazarus: Form Recovery" at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6984. I use them both.

– harrymc – 2009-09-28T18:04:40.250

Yes, but if you say not to save the password, it doesn't save anything. Again, I want to remember the username (and potentially other non-secure fields) but just not the password itself. I didn't specify that I want it to automatically fill out the part of the form that it knows, which disqualifies Lazarus. I'll edit the question for that. – wfaulk – 2009-09-28T18:24:03.923

Lazarus does what you want. I've added it as a separate answer. – harrymc – 2009-09-28T18:34:33.853

I'm going to work with them and see if they can't get this issue fixed. They already emailed me back with information that implied they expected it to work the way I want already. – wfaulk – 2009-10-01T20:25:14.103

It occurred to me that, as a workaround, I can put in a bogus password and have it autofill but not autosubmit with that, then change it. – wfaulk – 2009-10-05T17:52:53.147

+1 for LastPass. Happy user on Windows, Mac and Android. – GregD – 2009-10-07T19:42:08.243

Found here:

Firefox will remember passwords by default. You may have disabled this feature, or told Firefox to never remember passwords for a particular site.

At the top of the Firefox windowOn the menu bar, click on the ToolsFirefoxEdit menu, and select Options...Preferences....
Select the Security panel.
If it isn't already check marked, check Remember passwords for sites.
To the right of Remember passwords for sites, click the Exceptions... button .
Make sure that the site you're trying to log in to isn't in the list. * If it is, select the entry and click Remove.
Click Close to close the Exceptions window.
Click OK to close the Options windowClick Close to close the Preferences windowClose the Preferences window

enter image description here

joe

Posted 2009-09-28T15:35:17.710

Reputation: 11 615

2This disables saving passwords and usernames, doesn't it? This is one of the first things I do with a new Firefox installation. I suppose it's possible that I disabled something else that caused the usernames to also not be saved, but I don't think so. – wfaulk – 2009-09-28T18:18:11.813

No, it doesn't. Just start typing your username in the usual place and you'll see the complete username just below the field. It can be autocompleted with Tab. Or just press Alt-Down without typing anything and select the name – user7963 – 2009-09-29T14:21:21.397

Whoops. You're right. The other thing I disabled was "Remember search and form history" on the Privacy tab. But it still doesn't solve the problem, as Firefox doesn't distinguish between forms very well. I'm not sure what criteria are used, but I can have (and, in tests, did have) Firefox suggest things filled out in one form in a completely unrelated form. So it doesn't really solve my problem. – wfaulk – 2009-09-29T18:15:09.683

You should look at the form saver add-on "Lazarus: Form Recovery".

By default it doesn't save passwords, but it saves all the other fields in the form:

harrymc

Posted 2009-09-28T15:35:17.710

Reputation: 306 093

Yep, does what I want, except I still can't find the part where it does it automatically. That is, without me pressing any buttons. I doubt that that feature is there, honestly, as you don't want your forum post filled in every time, and that's what this extension is really for. – wfaulk – 2009-09-28T19:13:41.950

To be clear, I do say that anything faster that what I'm doing now is sufficient, and both Lazarus and LastPass fulfill that requirement, but I'm hoping that something that meets all my criteria will come along. I'm not trying to be overly negative. – wfaulk – 2009-09-28T19:16:20.057

A workaround can be to save the login with an invalid password. Firefox will auto-fill the username and password form but you'll still have to type your real password.

816-8055

Posted 2009-09-28T15:35:17.710

Reputation: 767