Don't use autofill in your browser

[viraptor]

That's a misuse for the term "autocomplete" in my opinion. What he complains about is "autofill", not "autocomplete" as I understand it. Autocomplete takes the values you used previously and gives you suggestions for the stuff you're typing in yourself. Autofill tries to guess what values are required and fills them in without additional interactions.

They're very different mechanisms...

[yaph]

Fully agree, using "autocomplete" is misleading. The suggestions that go into auto-complete fields come from the server, autofill from the client.

[AndrewDucker]

Doesn't seem to be an issue in Firefox, as far as I can tell. Certainly didn't fill any other fields for me.

[Tobu]

Even if it showed you the fields, it wouldn't be conclusive proof of a privacy leak. Firefox shows links visited without exposing that property outside of render context: https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2010/03/31/plugging-the-cs...

[dijit]

I have the same results.

Doesn't matter what I picked in autocomplete, nothing else was submitted.

(firefox 24 on linux)

[computer]

It's an issue for me with the Lastpass addon in Firefox, if I use the Lastpass autofill. That doesn't make it a Firefox issue, of course.

[elwell]

Works in Chrome if I use certain autofill sets (ended up testing with email address rather than name and it worked)

[mortenjorck]

I remeber noting with concern several years ago that Safari was blindly saving my credit card number along with all my other auto-fill data. Thing is, I recall observing that behavior stopping around Safari 4 or so – the browser appeared to be using something along the lines of the data detectors that put calendar links on times mentioned in emails, and saving everything but the credit card field.

[crashandburn4]

This is weird, I'm on chrome but it doesn't happen for me...

[DanBC]

I'm using Chrome version 30.0.1599.101 m on Vista. The form did what the post said it would - all those extra fields got filled in.

[bad_user]

It did happen to me on Chrome, but Chrome also gives you hints that it will do auto-filling should you select the value from that list.

[hydrology]

Same here.

[Sephiroth87]

Safari tells you what is actually going to autocomplete, so you could easily catch stuff that should not be sent...

[kalleboo]

This is true, and actually a pretty smart feature, but you have to take the time to double-check (which I suspect most users won't).

[roc]

Isn't that like claiming individual permissions pop-ups are working just fine on mobile devices, because people are carefully and individually considering whether each given app needs each requested permission?

If some autofill feature starts training users to click "Ok, Ok, Ok, Ok, whatever, just Ok!" any time they sign up for some account or site feature, how long until masses are unwittingly sending along way more data than any sober assessment suggests they ought to and we're shrugging our shoulders and saying "well, the site asked..."

[praseodym]

Firefox and the Mozilla Suite have had a very similar problem since at least 2005: it autofilled usernames and passwords, which creates a problem with XSS or user-generated content on the same domain. The bug was marked WONTFIX: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=280469

[bad_user]

Strange, but for me Firefox does not auto-fill passwords, unless you provide a username (and of course, you opted into auto-filling). What did it do, as I don't understand? Did it automatically auto-fill password fields that happened to get loaded on the page?

[Ellipsis753]

Seems to work correctly (only name is submitted as one would expect) on Firefox 24.0 and Chromium 30.0. Edit: This is on Gentoo Linux.

[elwell]

You have to have an autofill set up with more information than just your name. You can tell if you have this set up because when the autofill choices show they will have your address etc in gray next to the choices you are auto-completing.

[michaelmartin]

I just don't store credit card details in my browser. Auto-complete for emails is extremely handy and I use that all the time, but does purchasing things online really need to be any easier?

I don't mind reaching for my wallet there; it forces you to make a conscious decision to spend the money, which is at least slightly better than a 1-click impulse.

[elwell]

Credit card details are not the main concern here (because they are separated on Chrome), but you could send your address and phone number to a server without expecting to send more than your name or email address.

[bad_user]

True and it takes what? 1 minute of typing? Do we really need to go faster than that? Of course, companies are all in favour, but it's not in our interest.

[wil421]

I dont see the problem all that was filled in was my name. The other fields were left blank. Even when I reentered it after the other fields popped up.

[ck2]

Should be easy to make a proof of concept page to scare people dumb enough to have credit card auto-complete.

Just make hidden form fields for every field name you can think of, then make some onload javascript to welcome them to the page with any fields that aren't empty.

[gizmo]

Oh, c'mon! Storing credit card data in Autofill is actually recommended by Google and considered secure: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/142893?hl=en

You shouldn't call people dumb for following Google's instructions. I agree with you that storing CC details in a web browser is a bad idea, but we should take issue with Chrome here (and other browsers) not with regular "dumb" users.

[ams6110]

I always disable all "auto" functions in any browser. Autocompete for forms and URLs, remember passwords, everything I can find a switch for I turn off. Makes the browser faster and I feel like I'm more in control of it.

[ubercow13]

If only you could turn off auto-rendering, that bugs the hell out of me

[kevinmchugh]

Have you quantified that the browser speed gain offsets the time spent doing work the browser could do for you?

[freewheeling]

Web devs can recommend input fields not use autocomplete: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_input_autocomplete.asp

It's considered good practice to use it on login fields, but otherwise depends on whether you think security or user preference should take priority.

[kalleboo]

Why is it good practice to use it on login fields? That just means your users will use weaker (easier to remember) passwords on your site instead of using random, unique ones stored in a password manager.

[imurray]

Users that find this "good practice" annoying can override it with a bookmarklet or extension: http://kb.mozillazine.org/User_name_and_password_not_remembe...

[DanBC]

An attacker that can make use of an auto-completing password field has got enough access to mean that the game is over anyway - they can get that password from a variety of other sources on the machine.

Turning off autocomplete on login fields doesn't make that form more secure, and it does annoy users.

As kalleboo says, it probably reduces security as your users change to easy to type passwords, or keep needing password resets.

[gr3yh47]

I'm sorry, I've never used autocomplete for a few privacy related reasons, and this was one of them... this seems obvious, to the point where I thought the title was written in a sarcastic 'duh' tone...

I figured not letting your (google especially) browser store personal details was pretty much common privacy/security sense at this point.

[webhat]

Only occurred in Safari for me, not in Chrome or FireFox.

Also I was a little confused by autocomplete, I thought he meant for the address bar.

[elwell]

Worked in Chrome for me.

[thatmanjose]

Tested this with Autocomplete off in both Safari and Chrome, but completed the forms with Lastpass. Same problem.

[rejoinder]

Can someone explain the following page please? (As in what's being demonstrated here.)

https://yoast.com/research/autocompletetype.php

[ondiekijunior]

well I don't get the justification for the headline

[DavidWanjiru]

I added the word "apparently", coz I don't know if what the article claims is true or not...

[Aqueous]

This seems like an easy fix for the layout engines. Only include a field on autofill if it's currently visible on screen.

One might even classify this as a bug.

[daveasdf]

"Visible on screen" unfortunately is a hard thing to determine. You can easily imagine a textbox with white text on a white background, or a very small textbox, or a textbox that briefly pops up whenever you type a keystroke or click the mouse, or...

Browsers really need to support some mechanism where the user can determine precisely what information will be filled prior to it being handed over to the website. This needn't be difficult; Chrome's existing autofill popup already displays a subset of the information, the popup just needs to give a fuller picture.

[snewman]

I suspect this would be very difficult to implement robustly. There are just too many ways to hide something: color it white, overlay another element on top, use a weird font that causes it to look like something else, ...

[tambourine_man]

Just name and email here, but I guess I'm paranoid enough.

[peter303]

When your girlfriend borrows your computer and the browser sends her to porn sites.

[kolev]

You don't use "private browsing"? BTW, Chrome supports multiple profiles now.