Google Chrome is the market-leading web browser and gets a lot of things right. However, it has never really been that good at handling passwords. For example, it has always been impossible to add a password manually, instead waiting for the browser to prompt you. It now seems Google is now making positive changes.
Android Police reports the new stable version of Chrome comes with a flag (chrome://flags/#add-passwords-in-settings) that will allow users to add a password manually.
For example, if you sign into a site or store, you can now add your password without needing to visit the site, enter your details, and have Chrome ask you to save the credentials.
It is worth noting this ability has been doing the rounds on Canary builds for a few months and was first spotted back in 2021. Of course, you can get this feature from a dedicated password manager, but having it built into a browser is more convenient.
Google is seemingly making Chrome more appealing as a password management tool. The same Reddit user who first spotted the manual password feature (Leopeva64-2) has also found a new ability to add notes for passwords.
This is found in Chrome Canary 101 and adds another password tool that is available on managers but not on browsers.
Recent Fix
Earlier this month, Google rolled out a patch for a zero-day stemming from the Chrome Animation protocol.
Google has published a brief describing the high-severity flaw, tracking it as ID CVE-2022-0609. According to the company, there is an issue in the Chrome Animation component. Among the issues the vulnerability can cause include corruption of data, or promote methods for escaping Chrome's security framework.
Tip of the day: To prevent attackers from capturing your password, Secure Sign-in asks the user to perform a physical action that activates the sign-in screen. In some cases, this is a dedicated “Windows Security” button, but the most common case in Windows is the Ctrl+Alt Del hotkey. In our tutorial, we show you how to activate this feature.
