Posted: July 9, 2008/Under: Operating Systems/By: My Digital Life Editorial Team

When entering a password credential into a password secret field on web page or form, normally the password is masked as asterisk so that no other people that happens to be around the computer will be able to read or view the password entered. So how to make sure and verify that password typed is correct? There are various programs to reveal the hidden asterisk password, however, View Passwords Bookmarklet proves to be easier.

View Passwords Bookmarklet is a JavaScript (JS script) that can be saved as a favorite or bookmark, or directly enter into address bar or location bar to show the contents of password fields. The bookmarklets support viewing actual real values of multiple asterisk masked fields.

View Passwords Bookmarklet is especially if user user web browser or third party application such as Gator to save and autofill in the user name and password for various web services and Internet applications. Although the password manager will auto fill in the password, it’s still been masked as asterisks in the password field. So when user want to switch browsers, upgrade to a new computer, or simply want to record down the password, View Passwords Bookmarklet can retrieve and display the password covered behind asterisked text on screen.

To use View Passwords Bookmarklet, simply add the following link as bookmark or favorite, and click click on the bookmark or favorite when require to reveal and view the actual text contents of password fields, or simply copy and paste the JavaScript code into the browser’s address bar or location bar. There are two similar View Passwords bookmarklets available, with differences explained.

View Passwords

JS Code: javascript:(function(){var s,F,j,f,i; s = ""; F = document.forms; for(j=0; j<F.length; ++j) { f = F[j]; for (i=0; i<f.length; ++i) { if (f[i].type.toLowerCase() == "password") s += f[i].value + "\n"; } } if (s) alert("Passwords in forms on this page:\n\n" + s); else alert("There are no passwords in forms on this page.");})();

Above View Passwords bookmarklet will display the passwords of all masked fields including password values in a dialog box. Have problem detecting actual text in fields on IFRAME pages though.

View Passwords

JS Code: javascript:void((function(){var%20a,b;b="<"+"html>%5Cn<body>Passwords%20in%20this%20page:<p>%5Cn";(function(c){var%20d,e,f,g,h;for(d=0;d<c.length;d++){try{arguments.callee(c.frames[d]);}catch(i){}}e=c.document.forms;for(f=0;f<e.length;f++){g=e[f];for(h=0;h<g.length;h++){if(g[h].type.toLowerCase()=="password")b+=g[h].value+"<br>%5Cn";}}})(top);b+="</body>%5Cn</html>%5Cn";a=window.open("","","width=200,height=300").document;a.open();a.write(b);a.close();})())

Above View Passwords Bookmarklets will display detected passwords in a new web page, so make sure that pop-up blocker is not active or is not blocking the domain with password fields to be revealed. Can detect correctly passwords and asterisked values in IFRAMEs.

View Password Bookmarket to View Asterisk Value

View Passwords Bookmarklets work in Internet Explorer (IE), Mozilla Firefox (FF), Opera, Netscape, Safari, Konqueror and almost every other web browsers.

The bookmarklet view password hack do not crack the Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X or other operating system log on password. So physical security control still applicable. For user who wants to secure the passwords from this hack, do not ever let web browser save the password when offered to remember the login information, especially when using shared computer.

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