Google relents—adds system password prompt before displaying web passwords
(Phys.org) —This past summer it was widely reported that Google Chrome had a web security flaw—all of the passwords that were saved for various web sites could be displayed by anyone gaining physical access to a computer, by typing in a simple command. That prompted a lot of people to criticize Google for its lackadaisical approach to web security for its user community. Google defended itself by noting that if someone gained physical access to someone else's computer and were able to use their Chrome browser, they would be able to access all of the web sites that the original owner had saved anyway (because the login and passwords would be filled in automatically), regardless of whether they could see the passwords, which were stored on the local hard drive in plain text.