We stopped purging the local data on disconnect as people were getting confused and frustrated that they were losing all their login data when disconnecting/signing out of their FxA accounts, especially those that weren't using sync at all. Additionally, when we implemented a windows-password requirement for viewing passwords, users were super confused about what password was being asked of them.

Sorry for the inconvenience. We may change some things in later updates.

See:

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-master-password-protect-stored-logins

eva: understood eva. Kind of defeats the purpose.

corel: your answers, answers nothing to my post.

You can use a master password to protect passwords stored on your computer.
Firefox on desktop stores the passwords locally in the profile folder in logins.json, so they are not retrieved from the Sync server like the Lockwise app on mobile does.

eva: understood eva. Kind of defeats the purpose.

Your impression of how Sync actually works and what is does for the Firefox user is incorrect. Constant synchronization of Firefox data among multiple devices, as those devices are being used so that your data is available on any connected device that you happen to be using at any time. Sync is not for "storage of user data" and that data can only be accessed thru Sync; worthless 'blob' of data outside of Firefox, that can't be decrypted outside a "connected device".