The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #137165 Message #3137176
Posted By: JohnInKansas
17-Apr-11 - 11:14 PM
Thread Name: Tech: Max's Mudcat Labs (new feature testing)
Subject: RE: Tech: Max's Mudcat Labs (new feature testing)
Bill D asks:
And....HOW did IE,(version 6!!) which has NEVER been opened on this computer, know my sign-in and identify me without me telling it anything?
I don't think I like that......
There are multiple "password vaults" that you can use, some of which are accessible to any program on your computer and some that can only be accessed by the program they "belong to."
In some cases a site can use the cookie that identifies you, tagged to indicate that you don't want to be asked to log in when you come back the next time. Cookies are pretty much all in the same place regardless of which browser fetches them up. That's how mudcat keeps track of you - delete the cookie and you'll need to log back in.
A few sites accept your "saved" login to let you browse and post, but may insist that the password be manually entered, or that "security questions" be answered if you enter pages where "personal information" might be exchanged. An example would be if mudcat required you to re-log in to change your password or personal page (which I'm happy they don't do).
Windows can offer to "save login" for you, in which case it's the site that identifies that a particular login is needed, and Windows doesn't much care how you got there. Passwords and logins are maintained separately for each user, but if you don't password the user login onto the computer anyone who turns it on has them all.
Many AV programs have "independent" places for saving the info, with various protocols for their use. For some, you may have to login to the "vault program" before it will pass the passwords it remembers, after you login to open your username on the computer.
You're the only one with access to your computer to figure out how it's doing it; but there are lots of other methods you can use (if you can figure out how to turn the defaults off).
John