Not all users use this feature to save passwords, preferring to have them saved and managed on their own or using a third-party LastPass or 1Password password manager. This means that we do not need the Chrome password manager. That is why it may be interesting for us to be able to deactivate the password saving and autocomplete features of our browser. It does not matter if you are a user with little computer knowledge because performing this operation can be done easily from the Chrome Settings menu itself. For the more advanced, they can choose to use the Group Policy Editor that is part of Windows 10 Pro.
Chrome password manager, how does it work?
Google Chrome has its own Password managers. With this tool we can use Chrome to save our credentials to quickly access any website. In this way, every time we log into a new website or update the password for an old website, the Google browser will show us a pop-up window to save or update the information.
By clicking the Accept button, we are allowing Chrome to save both the username and password that we enter in the login form of a website on the computer. Specifically, this data is stored in a SQLite3 database that we can find located in the following path:
%LocalAppData% / Google / Chrome / User Data / Default / Login Data
The file containing the database is used only by Google Chrome. Therefore, it is assumed that no other software will be able to access it. The main drawback is that if we suffer a malicious attack on our computer, the hacker could easily obtain the saved passwords, decrypt them and steal them in plain text.
The truth is that the Google Chrome Password Manager can be useful for occasional users. However, unlike other more powerful password managers such as “1Password”, “Enpass” or “LastPass” it does not have more advanced functions. For example, Chrome’s password manager lacks support for multiple vaults. This makes it difficult to manage after a while, having hundreds of entries. That is why in these cases it is better to use an application that allows you to manage passwords by vaults. Additionally, Chrome’s manager also doesn’t support two-factor authentication, something that third-party administrators do.
In this way, those who use a third-party password manager may find it annoying when a pop-up window constantly reminds them if they want to save their passwords in Chrome, so they should opt for the option to disable it completely.
Disable the Save password window in Chrome
If we are bothered by the Save Chrome Passwords pop-up window, we can disable it forever from the Passwords section that we will find within the Chrome Settings menu or by using the Windows Group Policy Editor.
From Google Chrome settings
The easiest way to deactivate the “Save password” window that the Chrome password manager shows us is from its “Settings” section. To do this, we must open the browser and click on the profile image of the Google account that is in the upper right corner and select the “Passwords” icon.
This will take us directly to the Chrome «Settings» menu, within the «Autocomplete» section. Here we will have to deactivate the option “Ask if I want to save passwords”. When disabled, the button will change from blue to white. This way Chrome will not ask us to use Password Manager to keep our confidential information.
We can also to disable the button «Log in automatically», by means of which it allows us to automatically log in to websites, using our stored credentials. Disabling this feature will ask us for information every time we try to log into a website.
Likewise, if we are no longer going to use the Chrome password manager, we may be interested delete all the passwords that we have stored. To do this, we scroll to the bottom of the page, to the “Saved passwords” section. Here we will see each website that we have stored, along with the username and password. To remove it, click on the button with three dots that is next to each password and click on «Remove».
From Group Policy Editor
Group policies are those that help an administrator to configure our browser based on our needs. We can use Group Policy to configure Google Chrome and disable your Password Manager. In order to disable this function from the Group Policy Editor we must download the latest Chrome templates from this link and extract their content in a folder. Next, we press “Windows + R” and write gpedit.msc to access the Editor. Here we right-click on “Administrative Templates” in the “Computer Configuration” section. Later we select “Add or remove templates” in the contextual menu.
In the new window we select «Add» and we must select the file Chrome.adm that we will find inside the downloaded and unzipped folder within the path:
Windows / adm / es-ES
We close the window and from the Editor we will navigate to the following address:
Configuración del equipo / Plantillas administrativas / Plantillas administrativas clásicas (ADM) / Google / Gestor de contraseñas
Once here, we double click on “Enable the storage of passwords in the password manager”. This will open a new window where we must choose the “Disabled” option. Finally, click on Apply and OK to save the changes. We close the Editor and the annoying “Save password” window should disappear in Google Chrome.
