I love the fact that Firefox can store login names and passwords for me. However I’d like to back them up so that if I lose my laptop I can still have a copy. How do I do this?

I actually forgot who asked me this question, though I think I was actually on a treadmill in our local gym when this happened, so it has to be one of my gym buddies. Anyway, we were talking about different browsers and their relative strengths and weaknesses. I had actually persuaded him to switch to Firefox and he was asking me how he could back up his password.

Turns out there’s an Add-On that lets you do this. One of the great things about Firefox is the wealth of add-ons you can find for every function under the sun. The Add-on in question is called Password Exporter and lets you export and imports your password really easily. Installing it is pretty easy, as you just have to click the Install Now button on the download page. This downloads the add-in and, after a restart, makes it available for Firefox to use.

Backing up your password is now an easy task. Open your Tools->Options dailog box and navigate to the Security Tab. You’ll see a new button labeled Import/Export Passwords

Clicking on this option gives you another dialog box asking what you would like to do. You can elect to encrypt your passwords as you save them. Keep in mind that if you leave them as plain text you are exposing yourself to the risk that someone else may have access to them. Follow the instructions and proceed to create a backup file which you can leave someone safe.

Now to remember who asked the question … hmmm