Can the Firefox password manager store and manage passwords for multiple sub-domains or different URLs in the same domain?

Can the Firefox password manager store and manage passwords for multiple sub-domains, or for multiple URLs in the same domain? The default behavior of Firefox is that all requests for *.domain.com are treated as the same. I'd like to have Firefox do the following:

Store and manage passwords separately for multiple sub-domains, e.g. mail.google.com and picasa.google.com
Store and manage passwords separately for different URLs in the same domain, e.g. http://mail.google.com/a/company1.com and http://mail.google.com/a/company2.com

Howiecamp

Posted 2009-12-09T20:20:43.183

Reputation: 1 438

Mentioned above "Firefox 3.0 Password Manager only saves one password for entire site" thread isn't available now so please follow direct link to bugzilla: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=436275

– None – 2010-08-14T09:24:26.983

The first example will work, the second will not. Reason being probably security and the fact that you can have an infinite amount of such domains, which will slow down firefox eventually. – KdgDev – 2009-12-10T09:48:12.367

I don't think this is the infinite amount reason is the reason why. There are certainly many more domain names out there then there are URLs within a given domain that you'd have to log in to. In other words under www.google.com, only certain URLs will require logons at all. – Howiecamp – 2009-12-11T03:09:54.097

Answers

Yes, the password is always stored for the complete domain.

It wouldn't make sense if it didn't. For instance, imagine trying to log in to wordpress or blogspot hosted sites...

EDIT: an example:

The Firefox password manager supports saving a password for both domains.(Ning actually exists, by the way)

KdgDev

Posted 2009-12-09T20:20:43.183

Reputation: 4 708

2<< It wouldn't make sense if it didn't. >>

That's what I'm not understanding. Why wouldn't it make sense? Why couldn't a password manager be smart enough to distinguish? – Howiecamp – 2009-12-10T00:11:32.267

I think you've misread my response. What I am saying is that the firefox password manager does in fact recognise subdomains and gives you the option to store a different password for each one. – KdgDev – 2009-12-10T00:15:11.230

Good point - I did indeed misread it. Do you know if the inability to save different passwords for different URLs in the same domain is a limitation that could be solved by 3rd party tools? In other words I'm trying to determine if it violates some fundamental security principle... – Howiecamp – 2009-12-10T01:22:26.013

I take it you're trying this now and it's not working? Can you post the URLs you're doing this with in your original post? Do mind that "a different domain" means that somewhere before the .com/.net/... there is a difference. Everything after that does not count. – KdgDev – 2009-12-10T01:26:11.093

The Firefox password manager will happily store more than set of login details per domain (and realm), as long as you have different user names for each login.

I have a main Google account and two accounts on Google Apps systems, so three accounts on the www.google.com domain.

For mail.google.com/a/company1.com the login name is my first name, for mail.google.com/a/company2.com the login name is a nickname, and for the main www.google.com my login is my full email address.

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All I do is either start typing the login name, and then select the correct one for the service from the list of three that Firefox has remembered, Firefox then happily fills in the password field for me. Have also used on some other websites that I have multiple accounts on.

GAThrawn

Posted 2009-12-09T20:20:43.183

Reputation: 4 176

1A useful answer which helps some people and in fact I use this same technique for tax office websites which I have to use different user names for different tax types, company and personal tax etc. I think the original question wanted Firefox to recognise different URLs specifically though, not just let the user choose. – AdamV – 2010-05-17T15:04:58.693

Subdomains yes, urls on same domain, no, as far as I know.

AdamV

Posted 2009-12-09T20:20:43.183

Reputation: 5 011

For anyone else coming to this question through google, here's the trick: login through gmail. Logging in through apps doesn't let you specify a domain, but the gmail login page does!

Open these pages in your browser:
- https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/
- https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/
Login with username@example.com (or whatever you have) and your password.

(You may need multiple signon enabled.)

Bill T

Posted 2009-12-09T20:20:43.183

Reputation: 11