Reveal the passwords behind the asterisks
If you had a nickel for every time you've had to reset a password because you were used to logging in automatically were out of luck when you had to reinstall an application, we're betting you'd have at least a nickel by now.
Snadboy's Revelation is an unfortunately named application that makes recovering long forgotten passwords a snap. Sometimes. All you have to do is run the application and drag and drop a little target button over to an asterisked-out password. SnadBoy's Revelation will show what's hidden beneath those big black circles and let you copy the text to a clipboard.
Unfortunately, this won't work with all passwords. A lot of newer programs hide your passwords somewhere else, so those asterisks are really just place holders. For example, SnadBoy's revelation won't help you recover any website passwords stored in Firefox or Internet Explorer. But the application is still more than worth its price, considering it's free.
[via Lifehacker]
Snadboy's Revelation is an unfortunately named application that makes recovering long forgotten passwords a snap. Sometimes. All you have to do is run the application and drag and drop a little target button over to an asterisked-out password. SnadBoy's Revelation will show what's hidden beneath those big black circles and let you copy the text to a clipboard.
Unfortunately, this won't work with all passwords. A lot of newer programs hide your passwords somewhere else, so those asterisks are really just place holders. For example, SnadBoy's revelation won't help you recover any website passwords stored in Firefox or Internet Explorer. But the application is still more than worth its price, considering it's free.
[via Lifehacker]















Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-04-2007 @ 9:54PM
Onshot417 said...
"asterisk revealer" is better as it is a window that sits in the background and documents all asterisks. of course it will not work on IE but none do that i know of other than "System Information"
I cant find it online really so i uploaded it to filefront here:
http://hosted.filefront.com/oneshot417/
Reply
10-04-2007 @ 10:54PM
Brian Hebbes said...
Portable Roboform free version has only one limitation, no more than ten logins. There are workarounds, eg. multiple identities, safenotes.
It's very good, and you can take it with you on a USB stick (best on an MPLAT FlashPhone along with your Voip and Google Toolbar)
Reply
10-05-2007 @ 8:45AM
Fred Thompson said...
Asterisk Key http://www.lostpassword.com/asterisk.htm will also show passwords.
What does Portable Roboform have to do with revealing obscured passwords? Who knows. Don't drink and surf...
Reply
10-05-2007 @ 9:39AM
Michael C. Sherrin said...
I find this is more important for Firefox. I have far more online passwords that I can never remember (especially now that I got a new computer).
*******
Michael C. Sherrin
http://www.prodigeek.com/
Reply
10-05-2007 @ 10:42AM
Stuart Halliday said...
Och, there are a dozen of these programs on the market. Most are free.
Reply
10-05-2007 @ 5:36PM
z0iid said...
siw.exe (System Information Widget) has this same ability. written by Gabriel Topala, under Tools - Eureka. (it sees pw's in IE, but probably not IE7)
Plus siw is useful for many other things.
Reply
10-06-2007 @ 9:22AM
fred said...
Firefox, installed with DOM inspector, needs only the "InspectThis" extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1913).
Right click on the asterisked password field, then select "Inspect element" from the resulting context menu. A DOM inspector window opens, centering on the password field: select the "Javascript object" view in the DOM Inspector's right panel, expand "Subject", and the hidden characters will be shown in a string next to the "value" Property.
Reply
10-20-2007 @ 9:17AM
WL said...
I love this program it comes in handy every once in a while, been using it since win 95
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