513534 - Login forms in background tabs should never cause master password dialog to appear

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Password Manager, enhancement)

Description

[Jesse Ruderman]

Login forms in background tab should never cause the master password dialog to appear.  If and when the user enters their master password for another reason, background tabs can have their passwords filled in at that time.

I've heard that master password prompts are an annoyance for users who use master passwords and have large stored sessions.  I haven't tested myself as I use neither feature.

cf bug 400680

Comment 1

[Paul O'Shannessy [:zpao] (not bugmail, email directly)]

Just writing down an idea that came to mind before I forget it.

We should be able to determine if we can fill fields before the master password is needed. We should be able to see if the tab we're trying to fill in is the focused tab (and the focused window). If it's not focused, attach a focus event which then does the actual form filling (and master password prompt if still needed). If we can do something like this it might even help with the multiple prompts problem.

Comment 2

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

See also bug 499233, which, while a subset of the problem this bug is trying to solve (with this bug fixed a single background tab with form data would not cause a master password prompt), would IMO fix the main annoyance with the master password on startup.

Setting bug 499233 as depending on this, because fixing this would fix that bug too.

Comment 3

[Luc Mousseau]

In response to Jesse, I do use stored sessions and am very annoyed that when I reopen Firefox that I'm bombarded with X number of Master Password prompts simply because I have X number of tabs that may have a login form on it.

I'd be perfectly happy to get a single Master Password prompt that would cover ALL tabs, but I don't want to have to either enter it for each tab or hit cancel for each additional prompt. 

Bottom line.. there's only 1 of 3 ways this should work, you should either:
1. NOT get prompted at all when opening Firefox until you click on a login form.
2. Only get prompted if a tab that has a login form has or gains focus, and then that prompt would cover all other tabs.
3. Only get prompted once if any tab has a login form, and then that prompt covers all tabs with forms.

My preference would be either 2 or 3.

Comment 4

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

It's generally agreed among UX/Engineering/Product that we don't want to further develop the existing master password functionality, as it's a poor fit for current needs and our current direction in this area.

Comment 5

[bobbyalexphilip]

@Justin,  Is there any publicly available information on what the future of the master password functionality will be