Why isn’t my browser remembering my usernames any more?

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Remembering passwords in a browser is not secure. They can be recovered very easily. Rather than turn the option back on, let's look at some other solutions.
Question:

Very recently, my computer does not remember usernames for the various sites and I have to re-enter them each time I try to login to the sites. What do I do?

In this excerpt from Answercast #72,  I look at a browser that is not remembering passwords and several causes.

Remembering passwords

So, it depends on exactly what specifically you are missing.

If it's literally the usernames, usually that kind of information is stored in a cookie by the website that you're visiting.

Cookies

So, if for some reason:

  • You have changed your browser to automatically delete cookies when you leave
  • Or if you are deleting cookies on your own
  • Or if you're running a program regularly (like CCleaner that deletes cookies)

That would completely explain that kind of information being lost - because that's what those things do. They explicitly erase that information so that your browser doesn't have it to remember.

Auto-fill

The other thing that comes to mind is that if you mean "auto-fill," it could be your browser auto-filling these fields for you.

It is possible that the browser auto-fill setting has been turned off. The browser will be remembering these things for you and filling them in when you return to the same page as a convenience, right?

So what you can do is in your browser's Options, turn that on or off. In your case, you'll want to make sure that setting is still On.

Remembering passwords

And finally, if it also includes passwords, your browser has the option of remembering passwords for you as well. Now, I typically don't recommend it because browsers can be hacked into somewhat more easily than some of the alternatives. But if that's what you're talking about, that too is a browser option.

You'll need to take a look at the options within the browser that you happen to be using to see if the ability to remember passwords for you is in fact turned on.

Password software solution

My recommendation by the way for password remembering (which includes username remembering for these kinds of sites) is not the browser, but a tool like LastPass or RoboForm.

I happen to use LastPass myself and it does a fine job of remembering all of my different usernames and passwords for me. And it fills them into the browser for me automatically on all of the machines that I happen to use.

Next from Answercast 72 - "Should I accept application software updates relating to Windows 8 even though I'm running Windows 7?"

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