OK thanks for letting us know, I always wondered about this. So this would mean that if your password file gets stolen, the file should still be encrypted. That's why I never understood why browsers never beefed up their password managers. You might as well use the browser itself, instead of having to rely on third party tools. But only if browsers can guarantee that passwords are savely stored. And the password file shouldn't even be accessible to other apps. Currently that's not the case.
BTW, I have been playing around with Vivaldi's password manager and it doesn't use a master password but it does ask you for the Windows Login password when you want to access passwords. So does this mean that the passwords are still encrypted? I have tested third party password managers but didn't really like them, while the one from Vivaldi is very handy. Of course it's the same password manager that you will find in other Chromium based browsers like Chrome, Edge and Opera.
Well, I've done some research and apparently passwords are indeed encrypted in Chromium based browsers, but not good enough since they can be easily decrypted by certain tools. So now I have blocked access to the Vivaldi profile folder via SpyShelter, this means that in theory only vivaldi.exe can get access to the password file. I have tested it with WebBrowserPassView and it was succesfully blocked, it couldn't display the passwords. https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/web_browser_password.html
i have used a few password managers, but they all have strengths and weaknesses both related to the password manager and the method used to create the password. most password managers either rely on a master password or USB 2fa or other method, the problem with master passwords are the longer they are the better but longer passwords are hard to remember and sooner or later you will forget it and lose access. the problem with USB 2fa is that often the contacts get dirty or damaged unless their gold plated to protect them or some other method is used. and in addition they are easy to lose the smaller they are the more likely they are to get lost.
