One of the functions that the Google Chrome browser allows us is to save our passwords and be able to use them on all the devices where we log in. As a security measure, Chrome checks these passwords that we have saved and shows us warnings about whether they have been leaked. Then users usually choose to replace that password or if it is not used, they can also consider deleting that account to prevent someone from taking it and impersonating us. Soon we will see how the management of the warnings of those keys changes.
What has changed?
The difference is that before Chrome only provided us with a single option where we could disable this feature entirely. This means that the only choice we had was to disable the warning for all passwords, so in the event of a leak, it would not warn us. In the case of wanting to completely disable password verification, in the browser address bar we write chrome://settings/security and deactivate “warn you if passwords are exposed in a data breach” . This, as you can understand, will harm our security because we will not receive warnings.
Soon, those of us who use the Chrome browser to store our passwords will be able to silence these warnings for individual passwords. Therefore, we can leave password warnings enabled for our most important accounts and disable compromised individual passwords for the rest. You may be interested in knowing how to manage credit cards in Chrome and avoid leaks.
Disable passwords individually
We sometimes use some default passwords that are only used for local services. In the case of storing a default username and password combination for a local service or device, Chrome may detect it as filtered. Thus, in this situation it is very likely that it does not represent a real danger due to the local nature of that service.
Chrome is currently testing a new feature to disable warnings on compromised individual passwords that don’t really pose a threat to us. In this case, before deactivating any, it is convenient to be very sure of what we are doing. This new feature is called “Mute and unmute compromised passwords in bulk leak check.” This is an experimental feature at this time and must be enabled manually.
If we want to disable compromised individual passwords in Chrome we will follow these steps:
- In the Chrome address bar we write chrome://flags/#mute-compromised-passwords and press enter.
- There we have to look for Mute & Unmute compromised passwords in bulk leak check and activate it.
- Next, we need to restart the Chrome browser.
After restarting, to use this new function we will follow two steps:
- We select Menu> Settings> Autocomplete> Passwords , or in the address bar of the browser we put chrome://settings/passwords .
- We choose the Check passwords option to run a check for compromised and weak passwords.
Google then lists the compromised and weak passwords found during our password analysis.
Then we will see two lists that separate our passwords found in data leaks, which are those that have been compromised and those that are considered weak. As for the weak passwords, we can say that they have not been compromised. However, they can be easily hacked and should be changed.
So if we want to silence a compromised key, we click on the “ Change password ” button, and activate the “ Dismiss warning ” context menu option. On the other hand, if we want that warning to appear again, we repeat the process but select “Restore warning” for that password that we have selected before.
Finally, you may be interested in knowing what to do when a website does not load in Chrome or Firefox.