Stop websites turning off the “remember password” browser feature

I’m currently in the process of incorporating a company and www.businesslink.gov.uk is my friend (now gone away but there is https://www.gov.uk/browse/business), especially the “Business start-up organiser” which is the ultimate “to do” list of things that need to be done. However, I found the site was annoying in that it kept logging me out if I went away for 5 minutes and the login procedure is frustrating because it asks you for a long number and doesn’t remember it. To force Firefox to remember the login details you need to edit a settings file, nsLoginManager.js:

firefox_ubuntu
  • Edit the settings file. e.g. in Ubuntu: sudo emacs -nw /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.0.11/components/nsLoginManager.js
  • Find the “_isAutocompleteDisabled” function and change it so it always returns false
  • Save the file and restart Firefox

I’m going to add this to the list of “Essential things to do immediately after installing an Operating system” as it saves so much time.

Leave a Reply