Whenever you type your password on web, you see only asterisks instead of actual password characters. This feature is implemented to save you from shoulder surfing.
But sometimes, you do need to make sure that the password that you are typing is correct. For example, most online banking services will lock your account if you enter wrong password more then 5 times. But how can you make sure that the password you entered is correct? Is there a way to reveal what’s behind those asterisks?
HOW TO VIEW THE PASSWORD HIDDEN BEHIND THOSE ASTERISKS
There are many software available that help you to see the actual password. However, the easiest way is to use the View Password bookmarklets.
Just add any one of the following View Password bookmarklets into your bookmarks, and then just click on it whenever you want to see the password behind the asterisks.
1. The first bookmarklet can reveal the password of all password fields including the fields in dialog boxes. However, this bookmarklet sometimes can’t detect the password fields in Iframes.
View Passwords 1
(Drag it on your bookmarks bar)
JavaScript source behind this bookmarklet
javascript:(function(){var s,F,j,f,i; s = ""; F = document.forms; for(j=0; j<F.length; ++j) { f = F[j]; for (i=0; i<f.length; ++i) { if (f[i].type.toLowerCase() == "password") s += f[i].value + "\n"; } } if (s) alert("Passwords in forms on this page:\n\n" + s); else alert("There are no passwords in forms on this page.");})();
2. The following bookmarklet works just like the above, except that it will display the actual text behind the password on a new web page. Also, it works perfectly with Iframes as well.
View Passwords 2
(Drag it on your bookmarks bar)
JavaScript source behind this bookmarklet
javascript:void((function(){var a,b;b="<"+"html>%5Cn<body>Passwords in this page:<p>%5Cn";(function(c){var d,e,f,g,h;for(d=0;d<c.length;d++){try{arguments.callee(c.frames[d]);}catch(i){}}e=c.document.forms;for(f=0;f<e.length;f++){g=e[f];for(h=0;h<g.length;h++){if(g[h].type.toLowerCase()=="password")b+=g[h].value+"<br>%5Cn";}}})(top);b+="</body>%5Cn</html>%5Cn";a=window.open("","","width=200,height=300").document;a.open();a.write(b);a.close();})())
Note – If you are unfamiliar with the concept of bookmarklets, then its just a JavaScript that can be used in your browser’s url to do some repetitive tasks automatically. These scripts are called bookmarklets because they are normally stored as bookmarks on your browser’s bookmark bar. Check out the video below to see a bookmarklet in action
