How does a web browser save passwords?

Posted by marcus on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by marcus
Published on 2012-03-25T05:18:08Z Indexed on 2012/03/25 5:38 UTC
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encryption

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passwords

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hashing

How do current web browsers (or mobile mail clients and any software in general) save user passwords? All answers about storing passwords say we should store only hashes, not the password themselves. But I'm having a hard time searching the web trying to find the best techniques to store passwords when we know we will need them in plain text later on — without storing them in plain text, without using a weak encryption (known key) and without asking the user for a master password. Any ideas?

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