Wallet.crypto.autocompleteoverride

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Background

Internet Explorer 5 introduced a way for websites to prevent the browser from remembering data entered in form fields, implemented as an attribute on HTML form elements (<input>s). Banks and financial institutions quickly began using this to prevent customers’ usernames and passwords from being stored on computers. In fact, several began blocking Netscape 6 from using their sites because the Mozilla-based browser allowed users to save passwords locally.

In response, support for the attribute was added for Netscape 6.2 and Mozilla 0.8.1. Shortly after support was added, this preference was added to allow the browser to ignore the attribute if autocomplete entries were being encrypted locally.

This preference was originally Suite-specific, as Firefox and Camino use different implementations of form data saving. Camino gained support in version 0.9. Firefox will not support this preference (see bug 245333); a workaround is to use the Remember Password bookmarklet which disables the attribute on a per-page basis.

Possible values and their effects

True

Allow the browser to remember data entered in form elements that use autocomplete="off".

False

Honor the autocomplete="off" attribute and value. (Default)

Caveats

  • In Mozilla Suite Wallet encryption must be turned on for this preference to have an effect.
  • In SeaMonkey, Wallet encryption has no effect on this preference.
  • This preference has no effect in Firefox.

Recommended settings

If you aren’t comfortable keeping sensitive usernames and passwords locally on your computer (and you don’t want to accidentally save them via the Password Manager), you may want to leave this preference set to false. Otherwise, this is a convenient way to always save your usernames and passwords, even when websites think you shouldn’t.

First checked in

Mozilla Suite
2002-02-07 by Stephen P. Morse
Camino
2004-11-04 by Josh Aas

Has an effect in

  • Mozilla Suite (all versions since 0.9.9)
  • SeaMonkey (all versions)
  • Camino (all versions since 0.9)

Related bugs

Related preferences

See also

External links