Store web passwords safely

Too many complex passwords to remember? Make your New Year's resolution to write them all down somewhere safe. Here's a tip to automate the process.

If you use Google Chrome to browse the web you may well have lots of user names and passwords already saved in the Saved passwords list.

You could go through this and manually write down each set of URL, user name and password, or you can run a handy utility that dumps the entire list to a text file.

ChromePass is a great little application that you can run without installing it. It will enumerate all of the security details saved in Chrome and display them.

It can export selected entries (Ctl-A to select all) to a text file and can even rip out passwords from non-bootable disks.

Print the exported list and then delete the file securely (using Eraser or some similar file wiping utility), possibly encrypting it first if you want a safe digital copy.

Of course, such password recovery tools may be abused, which is possibly why Chrome claims that ChromePass is malicious (see below).

Cheerful thought for 2013: Having a physical archive of your passwords could be useful for your next of kin, after you die.