It’s 2023, why are websites actively preventing pasting into fields like passwords and credit card number boxes? I use a password manager for security, it’s recommended by my employer to use one, and it even avoids human error like accidentally fat-fingering keys, and best of all with the credit card number I don’t have to memorize anything or know a single digit/character!
I have to use the Don’t Fuck With Paste addon just to be able to paste my secrets into certain monthly billing websites; why is my electric provider and one of my banks so asinine that pasting cannot be allowed? I can only imagine downsides and zero upsides to this toxic dark-pattern behavior.
There is even a mention about this in NIST SP 800-63B, a standard for identity management that some companies must follow in the USA, which mentions forcefully rotating passwords and denying “password paste-in” as antiquated/bad advice:
Verifiers SHOULD permit claimants to use “paste” functionality when entering a memorized secret. This facilitates the use of password managers, which are widely used and in many cases increase the likelihood that users will choose stronger memorized secrets
Edit: I discovered that for Firefox users there’s a simpler way than exposing your secrets to someone’s third-party addon. Simply open about:config, search for dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled, and change it from true to false.
Edit 2: As some have pointed out, that config value interferes with regular functionality on some sites. Probably best to leave it alone unless you know what you’re doing.
I could be wrong because I haven’t used KeePass in a few years… but it’s my understanding that the auto-type feature doesn’t work on every website, depending on how they’re designed.
So auto-type will work on websites where the username input field and password input field are on the same page, and where you can switch from the username field to the password field with a single tab key press.
However I don’t think it will work on sites where the username needs to be submitted first before the password field is even visible. I think signing into a Google account is an example of this.
At least that was my experience when I was using KeePass a few years ago. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
The only app that won’t let me use KeePass autotype is Planetside 2’s launcher. I’ve never had any trouble in any other app with KeePass’s auto-type feature – including to log in to Google.
If a site is asking for a username first, then I can auto-type the username too ;)
Ah ok, thanks for letting me know. I haven’t used KeePass in a long time but I’m going to download it and give it another try now. It sounds like a good idea to avoid passwords from being stored in the clipboard. Thanks.