Password issues

June 18, 2006 7:24 AM

Why am I see the 'save password' window so often?

All of a sudden, everytime I type in a password to some website, I am asked by windows if I want to remember this password. I always click the 'don't offer to remember any more passwords' box, but it still pops up every time. Have I been hit by spyware or something that is causing this? I'm running XP, if that helps.

posted by Todd Lokken to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Your web browser is asking you the question specifically about each particular web site. So if you go to site1.com and click "Don't remember and more passwords" it only refers to site1.com, and will ask you again at site2.com (but shouldn't ask you at site1.com).

Depending on your browser, you can change the settings to turn this feature off for all web sites.
posted by i love cheese at 7:48 AM on June 18, 2006

Cheese...thanks for the reply; however, it is happening over and over again at site1.com....
posted by Todd Lokken at 8:55 AM on June 18, 2006

Is it also happening over and over again at site2, site3, etc., or is it a problem with one site only?
posted by rosemere at 9:06 AM on June 18, 2006

It might just be that the setting isn't staying set, or is getting reset by the browser. I've experienced this with Safari on OS X, for instance—even after dozens of times saying you don't want to remember passwords ever again, it'll sometimes continue to ask. Or after a long time where the "don't ask" setting seems to stick, it'll start asking again.

I think the solution is to make sure that there isn't some setting deep in the browser's preferences that's prompting the browser to ask you that. 'Cause it sounds like a case where a higher-level browser command (perhaps, as I said, something in the browser's actual preferences) is overriding your click in the dialogue box that should be telling the browser not to ask for passwords anymore.

Hmm. It could also be one of those things that happens if you have your browser set to erase settings on exit—that might be one of the settings that accidentally gets knocked out, so when you start the browser again and go to site1 it asks again about saving passwords.

But I think we need to know more specifically what the behavior is. Does this happen multiple times in a row at site1 when you don't restart the browser? Does it continue to happen when you do restart the browser and then visit site1? Do you visit other sites in between your visits to site1?

Also, what Web browser are you using? If we knew that, we could better guide you to the place in the preferences that might be causing this problem or conflict.
posted by limeonaire at 9:36 AM on June 18, 2006

Limeonaire...thanks for the answers...I'm usually IE 6.
posted by Todd Lokken at 10:56 AM on June 18, 2006

You might just openg the Internet Explorer Preferences and go to the last tab with the big list of settings and click the "default settings" button at the bottom.

You may have at some point in the past trying to do something else altogether and clicked on something you didn't want. (This happens much more frequently that you might imagine - especially if you are using a PC latpop that takes pad tapping as clicks.) Or you may just have a setting that won't stay put and the pref file for it is corrupted.

I'd try all the standard IE troubleshooting crap. Clear the cache, clear the cookies, clear the history, reset all the settings to default.
posted by smallerdemon at 11:08 AM on June 18, 2006

now that's a good idea. Sometimes I do forget to just try the standard IE crap. Thx. I'll let you know how it goes.
posted by Todd Lokken at 12:51 PM on June 18, 2006