New features in Chrome 88 will make your passwords more secure
A “weak” password list in your security checkup, plus easier password editing
Chrome 88 is rolling out today, and with it, Google has announced a small pile of new password-protecting features. In addition to checking your saved passwords to see if any have been breached, Chrome will also now just generally warn you when a password is too weak to be secure. And if you need to change any of your saved passwords, a subtle tweak makes that simpler to do as well.
While Chrome has been looking out for your password-based security for a while, it will also now let you know when a password is deemed “weak” or easy to guess — probably because it’s too short or present in a widely-used wordlist, like a name or place. Either way, these “weak” passwords get their own section in the Passwords section of Chrome’s settings, with a prompt to easily change them.
In the same vein, Google has added a new feature that makes changing stored passwords even easier, with a convenient “edit password” dialogue that’s faster and a bit easier to find in the 3-dot menu next to each item than the previous system.
These features will be rolling out “over the coming weeks” in Chrome 88 though some special folks may see them early — I already have the new weak passwords dialogue, for example. More features are also planned, like support for biometric authentication for password autofill, which is coming to Chrome for Android soon.