Is it safe to store your passwords in Chrome or other browsers?

Nowadays, people have many online accounts, which makes it difficult to memorize all the passwords. Chrome offers the convenience of saving your login details on Google's servers for easy password management. However, Chrome is not alone.

Other browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, also allow you to store usernames and passwords to access websites immediately. But, have you ever wondered if saving your passwords in Chrome, Google or any other browser is safe or dangerous? Let's talk about it.

Is it safe to store passwords in Chrome or other browsers?

Well, Google says that Chrome encrypts your username and password with a "secret key" known only to your device. And this happens before the data is stored on Google's servers, which means that no one, including Google, can access your username or password.

If you visit the password manager section of your Google account, you will learn that not even you can access your ID or passwords. Yes, you read it, right. The search giant will first ask you to enter your Gmail account password, after which you can verify the details.

While Google never sends you an alert when you or, say, someone else tries to access your passwords, the good thing is that you can't access all your passwords at once. So, for example, if you want to check your Facebook username and password, click on it and enter your Gmail password. You can then verify the login credentials.

This is a good practice, but you don't get special alerts for it. Browsers like Firefox don't even follow this practice and there's no way to add a security PIN to protect the id and passwords you store on their servers.

Although Firefox says its data is "secure", this doesn't seem to be the case, as someone can simply open or hack your laptop by accessing the login credentials under Settings > Privacy & Security > Logins & passwords.

Whatever the case, it's still not safe to store login details in any browser, including Chrome, as you don't always get full protection and risks are always involved.

For example, if your laptop is breached, your data could be compromised. If your Gmail account is hacked, the person can easily log into any account or website you have stored on Google's servers.

You may have noticed that once you sign in to Gmail on your new device, you don't need to sign in again to the Play Store, Chrome, Google Photos or Drive. You can easily access everything just by logging in to Gmail.

What can you do?

If your passwords for Facebook, Outlook, bank and other accounts are saved on Google, you should remove them immediately. Although many banking websites have a two-step verification system and follow some security protocols, it can be difficult for a hacker to crack it. However, it is advised not to log in any account credentials.