Firefox Community Forum

It is about Master Password. Before the updates, users need to enter the password before they can continue using Firefox. After several updates it turns into Primary Password which doesn't work the way before. It now allows user to close the password input box and they can continue using the browser. I found this out after my nephew uses my PC and he uses Firefox and I noticed he was able to gain access on my browser. Lots of opened Tabs has been closed out. How can I bring back the old Master Password function which allows you to basically lock your Firefox? The new function Primary Password is a downgrade security feature.

Is the Primary (formerly called "Master") password shared or Firefox synchronised between different devices?

The reason that I ask this is that I am a decrepit and ignorant old bugger in his 8th decade that has been using Firefox for nearly 25 years. Consequently I have a lot of passwords stored in Firefox's password manager that I REALLY do not want to lose.

Unfortunately, on my main desktop machine, becoming more paranoid after a suspected identity theft attack, I decide to change the Master Password (recently re-named to Primary Password) to something longer and harder to guess or break.

Unfortunately I have forgotten what I changed it to ! (I can remember the first 15 characters but then not the ending sequence...)

However, I discovered that on an old laptop (that had not been connected to the internet for a long time - and I've disconnected it from the local Wi-Fi now) that my old password still worked and I could still see many of the old passwords (since it had not been synchronised).

I am worried that if I try and restore my passwords by now connecting to the internet and synchronising, I will then be locked out of this remaining treasury of my passwords if Firefox synchronisation then disastrously changes the old password (that I still remember) to the new password that I have forgotten - hence my question...

PS: I still have a paper record of something called an "Account Recovery Key" consisting of 8 groups of 4 alphanumeric characters (each group only contains capital letters and numerals - although one 4 character group does not contain any numerals at all, but all groups have at least one capital letter). Could I use this to recover the misremembered new password?

PPS: Don't you think it is always a bad idea to include both zeroes and letter Oh for Oscars in this account recovery key as capital letters rather than lower case letters, since they look so similar?

ie z00 or zoo is less prone to confusion that Z00 or ZOO

Veuillez saisir votre mot de passe principal." : cette fenêtre apparaît à tout bout de champ. Réinitialiser ? La clé de sécurité est refusée... Et je suis incapable de fermer mon compte... C'est un cul-de-sac. À l'aide SVP !Merci ! Eloi

With update 136.0, FF is requiring us to use a master password. I have one already set so my data is protected. I do not need a master password to open FF, but now I do.

STOP THIS MADNESS

I have forgotten my Primary Password for Firefox on my PC.

I found the solution to reset it at: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-your-primary-password-if-youve-forgotten-it It explains that the stored data will be lost, which is fine. I made a recent backup (~99%).

But it does not say what will happen to connected devices (phone) using sync on the same account.

Will the emptied local storage on PC repopulate the data from the phone? Or will the phone sync with the empty storage on the PAC with as a result an empty storage on the phone as well.

It's been a certain amount of time since I've been waiting for Firefox to fix this major security flaw about the protection of saved password and I haven't seen any upgrade on this aspect. Let me explain : Firefox has the feature of Primary Password where we have to put a password to access the Password manager. Now there is a very big issue with this feature because if I go to any page for which I have saved my password, I just have to select the password and click the eye button to reveal the password, without even needing to put my Primary Password. I know there is a way of just disabling the auto-filling of password but for conveniency purposes it's just better to have a way to select the password. Could there be a way to either ask for the user to enter the Primary Password or implement a way to use the fingerprint to allow the filling of password as it's already the case in other browsers.

My questions are : Is the Firefox team aware of that ? and is there a way to hope that Firefox could finally implement a fingerprint unlock to access sensitive data like passwords ?

Dear support, I have 2 pcs and I need to enter sync password every time I open Firefox - start notebook. It works fine on the second pc and password is remembered. How to solve it? Because I need to write sync password every time, open all cards etc .. OS - win11 pro, Firefox browser versiono 145.0.2 64bit, no 2FA in firefox. Thank you. Mike Hrubjak.

I did not set a primary password but they I'm constantly asked to enter it? I can't reset it because it'd delete all the saved passwords which I want to view. Is there a default primary password?

Tried to go to Amazon (I have a Prime acct.) on my desktop. Mozilla asked for my PIN. I don't have my PIN. Mozilla said go to Settings and Accounts to add a new PIN. I went to Firefox/Mozilla settings and could not find Account in order to get a PIN. I tried searching in Settings on Account; nothing. I scrolled and clicked around and could not find what I needed.

I am old but far from tech illiterate. I've worked on computers since the mid-1980s. I've had this sort of layered problem with Firefox before. Firefox has been my preferred browser since the 1990s, I believe. I appreciate the concerns with privacy and safety in browsing. But I've run into this sort of problem a number of times. I need to know how to address the PIN issue. I'm happy to get a new PIN if I could only find a way in the browser's settings to do just that.

And, by the way, the password I had for Firefox/Mozilla would not work, though I have it written down, know my entry was correct, keep my passwords in a safe place. I had to open my account on Firefox/Mozilla with Google, which, of course, meant entering another password and doing verification via iPhone. And, of course, I ended up entering with Google and the entry was associated with my secondary email address. That, unfortunately, is not the email address my Firefox/Mozilla account is associated with. It is associated with my primary email address.

All of this takes way more of my time, the customer's time, than I intended when all I wanted to do was open Amazon and print a return label on a product I had ordered. The ridiculous process has left me pretty pissed off.

Frankly, I'd be happy to simply enter my Amazon password to complete the task I need to complete, but Firefox is in the way! Please make your security add-ons clearer and more easily worked with. And please let me know how I can get a new blasted PIN! Of course, I will evidently have to change my Firefox/Mozilla password, as well, since you will no longer accept my current password that, BTW, was made in the past 6 months.

Ugh! Just recognized that I have to wait for another user to volunteer some sort of advice on this. That just makes me madder. I excised my actual email addresses, primary and secondary, from this message because I initially didn't realize this just goes out to a generalized community to see if anyone has something to offer.

Getting closer to abandoning Firefox.

Hello, recently, my Windows PC always asks for the master password when I open Firefox. The method of removing the master password, then closing Firefox completely and resetting the password the next time I start it doesn't work! Observed in Firefox 136.0.1 in Windows 10 and 11. Also new and surprising is that Windows 11 requires the window pin to be entered before a master password can be set. No security software (except Windows Defender) installed. No new software - except for the regular update of Firefox . The observed behavior is at least very annoying, perhaps frightening( who needs my Windows password?).

Maybe it is a new feature and unwanted "windows security" Wolf Piotrowski I attach a screenshot of "windows security Mozilla" pop up (in a german installation of windows/firefox)

I have set a primary password, and it all works exactly as it should. But, when I first start firefox, if I type too quickly, my keystrokes find their way to the address bar, rather than the primary password entry pop-up. AFAICT this is because the address bar is automatically selected as the focus for typing at firefox startup.

This sometimes means I've put the first few characters of my password into a search. And with search completion, I worry that these characters get either recorded or worse sent over the Internet.

Is there any way to deselect the address bar before I've entered my primary password? I don't want single site browsing or such, just for either my keystrokes to be buffered and sent to the primary password pop-up, or for the keyboard to block until said pop-up appears.

I have always had them setup. And I would expect a prompt when my computer had been shut down, or OS/FF had updated - seems normal. As of a couple weeks maybe months ago, I'm being asked for it what feels like constantly. In fact, It just asked me twice back to back withing the same session/tab/interaction with Passwords. That feels like a lot, esp if you actually have longer and more complex pwds than 90% of us. (And me sometimes, not claiming to be a pw angel or anything lol). But personally, Mozz/FF passwords fall into the top tier of my brains security hierarchy, along with my Apple Account, private keys, device encryption, MFA recovery, etc...things you'd generally be sure to incorporate best practices with and really don't wanna forget or lose. I don't really love the idea of turning it off, buuuut getting a bit grumpy about being pestered all day from Firefox.

So bug? Updated policy? I just woke up form a Coma and simply don't recall 2024? Hopefully not the third one.

On an M4 Max running Sequoia Version 15.2 (24C101) using FIrefox 136.0.1 at the moment, but have noticed the same on a Yoga/Windows 11, iPhone, M1 Macbook Pro.

Privacy/Security is set to Strict. No sus permissions I can see. HTTPS only. DNS over Cloudflare (Default Protection). No exceptions of any type granted. Aside from Mozilla (for Extensions), and Google (for Popups).

Thanks yall.

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Oh (and I should prob open a proper ticket but while) but I'm here, and I just noticed the line about "On macOS, some background tabs will be moved to lower power cores, reducing energy usage." from a recent Firefox update brief. I've been having a rough time lately on this M4 Max - 16 cores, 64GB mem with tabs freezing up the whole browser, every window. Sometimes the whole OS. Not specific to any certain site, and has happened with 1 windows and 3 tabs open just as often as 4 windows with 40 tabs open. And usually I cant even get to Activity Monitor at that point to see if it looks like a memory leak, or whatever. And if I can get it to shut down (the browser), it will get into this loop where it just loads back up all the same windows, and that same particular tab will lockup again as soon as I click on it. And it takes foreevvvver to load back up even when I don't interact with the browser aside from CMD-Tabbing tf out of there. Tbh I'd prefer FF to launch clean after being told to shut down. Always have the option to load recent windows anyway....

^ aaand then saw the blatantly obvious checkbox to turn off reload on start my bad. 😅

Sorry last thing - what exactly does "We've made some educated guesses about your current browser and operating system." mean? Yeah that sounds straightforward, and I would expect that from most websites? I think? I know you want to be transparent, but that phrasing sounds weirdly aggressive lol

When I open Firefox, I get a small window asking for a primary password and I find no where to get rid of this. I have a Mozilla password, but that one does not work in the small window.