Firefox Sync Part 2: Passwords

This article continues on from yesterday’s post about syncing Firefox bookmarks. Passwords are a slightly different matter: naturally there aren’t any social services like Delicious, and you might not want to sync to a third-party service.

Foxmarks

Foxmarks includes a feature called “secure password sync”.  This encrypts passwords with a pin that you define.  The data is stored on their servers.  The feature works relatively well, and because Foxmarks syncs bookmarks this means there’s only one thing to install and upgrade.

Foxmarks works with your own server too.  This means if you have access to an FTP or WebDAV share you can store your passwords there rather than on their servers.  Some web file sharing sites like Box.net offer WebDAV, so if you’re already using them you could store passwords there too.  Foxmarks explains this feature on their wiki.

LastPass

LastPass is installed as a Firefox addon and stores your passwords on their servers, but claims to be more secure than Firefox’s default password manager.  I’ve got it installed in Windows and on my Mac, and it’s working very smoothly.  It’s also possible to access a web interface (at lastpass.com), and a mobile version at m.lastpass.com.

LastPass makes identity management easy which helps me manage my multiple Twitter and Google identities.  It’s worth trying if you need to manage multiple accounts for your company and personal idenity.

During install in Firefox they make it look like Opera and Safari support is available, but it’ll only work in these browsers through bookmarklets.  They’re working on Safari, and the FAQ basically says “Opera support will be available when Opera realises they need to support addons”.

SyncPlaces

SyncPlaces is just a Firefox addon — there’s no web service or centralised storage.  This means you need to provide your own web or FTP account.

Build A Custom Solution

Password Exporter exports and imports your passwords as CSV or XML.  You could use this to build your own solution, syncing passwords through storage space you control