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by e12e 4604 days ago
Regarding 3) Mozilla already runs free sync servers, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to allow syncing of contacts (In fact, extending Mozilla sync api/service to support Thunderbird might be a good idea...?).

Other alternatives are syncing contacts via IMAP or LDAP -- although I'm not entirely sold on either of those...

As for "liberating" your contacts from Facebook/Google/Etc -- your browser might actually have an advantage -- everyone that uses these sites, already trusts their browser with the login information. That's not much of a stretch to implement some wrappers around the various apis to get a "local" (in browser profile) copy of the list(s).

Firefox (or Iceweasel) already manages many of my passwords, I'd have no problem syncing my contacts with Firefox too (although I currently don't see much of a need for it. Might make a good addon either way -- makes using disconnected webmail services even easier if Firefox has my address list...).
1 comments
tehwalrus 4604 days ago
re: saving passwords in a browser: oh yeah, people still do that. I haven't for years. I leave a few auth cookies around, true, but not for sensitive sites.
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e12e 4604 days ago
Why not? Anything particularly bad with how Mozilla encrypts and stores passwords (when a suitable pass-phrase is chosen)?

Unless you're using some form of one-time token, a compromised browser process could still expose your passwords (not to mention that it of course have access to whatever data you protect with that password (emails, documents etc)).

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tehwalrus 4604 days ago
Does firefox actually encrypt them and require a master password to open them up? Times have clearly moved on... Back in the day, it (or whichever browser I was using in 2009) used to just autofill the passwords for the site, I assumed they were just encoded somewhere, not encrypted.

I use a mixture of things I've been meaning to consolidate for a while... all of which are a big list of unique (obviously) passwords stored somewhere encrypted by a long password.

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fernandotakai 4604 days ago
This is a good (albeit old-ish) article on extracting passwords of firefox, chrome and IE http://raidersec.blogspot.com.br/2013/06/how-browsers-store-...
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wtbob 4604 days ago
> Does firefox actually encrypt them and require a master password to open them up?

Yes, and in fact Mozilla Weave is actually cryptographically really sharp.

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