Chrome and Firefox have built in password managers

Chrome and firefox both have built in password managers. It’s generally not a greate idea to use them for a few reasons.

  • They are only on one device*: If chrome has a password for something then it’s not accessible in firefox, someone elses computer, your phone, etc.
  • There’s no password protection by default: You don’t have to put in a main password at any point so it’s probably the case that they are just sitting in plain text (or slightly obscured) somewhere on your (probably unencrypted) hardrive.
  • Less features: There’s no sharing, no notes, no attachments, no emergency access, limited inport/export etc.

*Firefox and chrome both have an account sync feature that can get them onto multiple accounts but… even still it’s it’s just not made for the same use case.

All in all these built in password managers were really just lavish autocompletes and that’s it.

Your browsers also store other info like addresses/phone numbers/etc. in a similar system.

Stop, now think about it

Here’s the thing, your chrome/firefox logins are probably a mess. There’s probably a ton of stuff in there that doesn’t work, maybe stuff that isn’t even a website, autofills for addresses that you haven’t lived at in years, etc. Now is an excellent time to clean that up. Especially if there’s already stuff in your Bitwarden. You don’t want to polute that. Better to clean it up now then to have a messy Bitwarden.

I recommend you – and this will be painstaking (sorry) – go site by site and make sure the login works. If it doesn’t individually delete that one website. Then export. It sucks in the short term but saves you in the long term.

Exporting

Thankfully, exporting existing passwords is relatively easy.

CSVs

You’re passwords should come out in CSV format. For the uninitiated, CSV stands for Comma Seperated File. It’s a way to store tabular data. So lets say you have a table that looks like this:

Name Password URL
Thing Pa$$w0rd http://pigeons.biz
Other Pa$$w0rd2 http://lions.biz

In CSV format it will look like this

Name,Password,URL
Thing,Pa$$w0rd,http://pigeons.biz
Other,Pa$$w0rd2,http://lions.biz

Excel can open CSVs.

Firefox

  1. In the top right hand of the browser there are three bars stacked on top of each other. Click that.
  2. There’s an option called “Passwords” click that.
  3. In the upper right hand corner there are three dots and when you click em there’s an option that says export logins.
  4. Export them as a CSV

Chrome

  1. In the top right hand corner there are three dots. Click that.
  2. Go to settings.
  3. Hit “Autofill” on the right side.
  4. Select “Passwords”
  5. In the “Saved Passwords” section, on the right side you’ll see three dots stacked vertically. Select these.
  6. Hit “Export Passwords”

Lastpass

  1. Go to the Lastpass website.
  2. Go to “Advanced Options”
  3. Hit “Export”

Importing into Bitwarden

  1. Log into the Bitwarden website.
  2. Go to “Tools” then “Import Data”
  3. Under the “Select format” there are specific CSV things for Firefox, Chrome, and Lastpass. Choose the appropriate one.

Deleting and turning off passwords

Firefox

Turning off

  1. In the top right hand of the browser there are three bars stacked on top of each other. Click that.
  2. Go to “Settings”
  3. Go to “Privacy & Security”
  4. Scroll down to “Logins and Passwords”
  5. Uncheck the “Ask to save logins” box
  6. Right bellow “Logins and Passwords” should be “Forms and Autofill” Redirect your attention to that.

Deleting

  1. In the same area as above, under “Logins and Passwords” click “Saved Logins”.
  2. In the top right hand corner there are three dots. Click that.
  3. Select “remove all logins”
  4. Go back to the “Logins and Passwords” and scroll down to “Forms and Autofill”
  5. Click “Saved Addresses”
  6. In the pop up window you can shift click to select all the addresses that are there and remove them.
  7. Close the popup and go to “Saved Credit Cards”
  8. In the pop up window you can shift click to select all the credit cards that are there and remove them.

Chrome

Turning off

  1. In the top right hand corner there are three dots. Click that.
  2. Go to settings.
  3. Hit “Autofill” on the right side.
  4. Select “Passwords”
  5. Uncheck (unselect/unslidey whatever) “Offer to save passwords” and “Auto Sign-in”.
  6. Go back then go to “Payment methods”.
  7. Uncheck “Save and fill payment methods” and “Allow sites to check if payment methods saved”
  8. Go back then go to “Addresses and more”.
  9. Uncheck “Save and fill addresses”

Deleting

  1. In the top right hand corner there are three dots. Click that.
  2. Go to settings.
  3. Hit “Privacy and Security” on the right side.
  4. Click “Clear browsing data” (don’t worry, ti’s not going to immedietly delete everything. First there’s a step where you select the data you want deleted.)
  5. Go to the “Advanced” tab.
  6. In the “Time Range” dropdown select “All time”
  7. Uncheck everything but “Passwords and other sing-in data” and “Autofill form data”.
  8. Hit “Clear data”