Google working on 1Password-like feature for Chrome

Google is working on a possible password-managing tool for future versions of its Chrome browser. ArsTechnica found details of the interesting project on the Chromium Project site.

Much like the popular 1Password software from AgileBits, the Chrome feature would generate, suggest, and remember strong passwords for you. The tool would save you from having to remember multiple passwords and cut down on the highly unsafe practice of using one password across multiple sites.

[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":393035,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,security,","session":"B"}']

The Chrome-created passwords would be random and different for each of the sites where you have a login. You wouldn’t have to use the tool while using Chrome, but the built-in option would come up each time you created a new account. In the mock-ups, it is indicated by a discreet key icon at the end of the password field. Click to get a randomly generated password that you change to meet any special requirements from the site (for example, must have one character and capital letter), and then Chrome will record it.

The suggestion would only come up for new passwords, leaving old passwords, for better or worse, alone. Since you wouldn’t know your own passwords, you’d also be less likely to succumb to phishing attacks.

An even more interesting potential feature would be a sort of self-destruct button. If your passwords fell into the wrong hands, you could do a mass reset and change all of your passwords.

The Chrome tool would only work with sites using OpenID, a standard that allows you to use one account to log in to multiple sites. Currently, more than 50,000 sites use OpenID, but there are still many more that need to adopt the standard to make this potential tool take off.

There is also the potential for privacy concerns, though many might see no harm in adding a few passwords to the scores of data Google already has from them.

Combination lock image via Shutterstock