Microsoft is taking things very seriously. The company wants to return strong to the web browser market and, although currently the largest share is held by Chrome, Google’s browser, Microsoft is trying to open a gap through the main weaknesses of its rival: security and privacy. On this occasion, Microsoft Edge brings us a new function thanks to which we can use the browser in a more secure way, protecting our accounts and preventing other users from being able to log in without permission: a new authentication system for your password manager .
Web browsers are currently much more than programs that help us navigate the Internet. And one of the most interesting functions that we can find in these is the password manager. Given how important it is today to use different and strong passwords on all the websites where we register, having a good tool to save them is essential. Browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, etc.) have their own password managers. And they are very convenient to use, since in addition to allowing us to automatically log in to the webs, they allow us to keep passwords synchronized on all devices thanks to the cloud.
The problem with using these password managers is that anyone who has access to our PC could have access to the accounts, since, although they could not see the passwords, thanks to auto-completion they could log in to any page without any security measures additional. And this is just what Edge addresses with its new security measure.
Edge will ask for authentication to auto-fill passwords
Microsoft is testing a new security feature on some Canary version users. With it, what Microsoft intends is that users have to authenticate in the browser before it automatically fills in the password of any website where we have not yet logged in.
To do this, Edge will use the Windows Hello functions (PIN, Webcam, fingerprint, etc.) when we go to log in to a website. If we do not authenticate in this way, the browser will not fill in the username and password automatically, and to start session we will have to write the data by hand.
This new security measure will be optional. We can choose to have Edge always fill in the data automatically , or to ask us for authentication after a minute or once for each browser session. We can also make it ask us for authentication whenever a login is to be filled out.
Thanks to this new security measure, users concerned about their safety, especially those who use a PC that other users can access, will be able to protect their accounts from unauthorized access better than ever. Of course, this security measure only works with sites where the session is not started. If we already have the session open and saved for a site, such as OneDrive, by not asking for login we will not have to authenticate. To avoid this, we will simply manually log out of these sites when we are done using them.
Of course, when entering the password manager we will also have to authenticate with Windows Hello to be able to see and edit them.
When will it be available
At the moment, Microsoft has not given a date on when this security measure will take to all users. At the moment, only a small group of users of the Canary branch of the browser have it enabled in the testing phase. If all goes well, it won’t take long for Microsoft to bring all users out of the Canary branch of the browser. And once in the Canary branch, it is already a matter of waiting for it to reach the stable branch of it.
In addition to this security measure, Microsoft is working on other interesting news for Edge. For example, web widgets or new panels.
