Password protection for Profiles

Deleted
Not applicable

Feature Request: It would be good if the profiles were password protected, means while switching profiles, edge should prompt for a password for selected profiles(as per the need of user), what do you think Please let me know?

 

Please do upvote in the Feedback Hub--https://aka.ms/AA8ul3n if you like this idea.

Thank you:)

 

22 Replies

@Deleted Thanks for the suggestion! Here are some questions for you:

 

  1. Can you tell us more about the use case for this? The feature was designed for all the profiles to be used by one person, ex. a personal account and a work account.
  2. One of the perks of multiple profiles, especially profile switching, is the convenience. How would you feel about having a less convenient experience (due to entering a password each time?)
  3. Would you ideally want those passwords to be remembered by the other account? If so, wouldn't that negate any additional security?

 

Fawkes (they/them)
Program Manager & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

@Deleted , Thank you for asking my opinion.

 

Where will it be useful?

  • When someone borrows our computer, We don't want them to peek at our other profile.
  • To keep the Profile safe (I think both points boils down to the same but...)

Entering password every time?

  • When it comes to the point of entering the password each time, I agree that it won't be comfortable, but the idea here is to secure the profile.
  • When I say password protection, You should provide a toggle in the Profile settings( To On and Off)
  • The reason behind toggle is, We wont be giving our computer to others all the time, so we will opt for password protection only when we give it to others.

User experience?

  • There might be people who use this feature all the time, so for person who uses it all the time, It would be good if you integrate the Windows hello instead of password.
  • Even if you integrate the Windows Hello, you should give a choice to opt for Windows Hello or not.
  • For something people want to protect , I think they don't look for comfort there.  (Though, as I mentioned we might not be using this all the time, and for the person who uses all the time, I'm positive that, one won't feel less convenient)

How should it function?(Of course you know this better than me)

  • When we switch to a profile which is opted for password protection, It should prompt for a password or windows hello, then, when we enter the required fields correctly, the profile will switch.

Would you ideally want those passwords to be remembered by the other account? If so, wouldn't that negate any additional security?

  • I didn't understand this question properly, but I'll try answering for what I understood, I don't want any account to remember this password( If I think I'll forget, I can save the password and hide it in the computer elsewhere, no one can figure it out)
  • The passwords should not be associated with any account (they should be stored in a different location.)
  • I don't know whether I answered this question correctly or not.

The picture is a prototype to understand my perspective.( this should happen when I click on my password protected profile)Prototype.png

 

 I hope, I answered your questions correctly and I hope to see this feature in Edge, Thank you :)

@Deleted Thank you for the delightfully detailed feedback and prototype! Adding @Avi Vaid, our Profile feature owner, so he can see this too. :)

 

Fawkes (they/them)
Program Manager & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

@Deleted Good news: the team was intrigued by your detailed feedback, and has started discussing it internally! So while I can't make any guarantees about implementation, I can assure you that the right people have seen this and are looking into it. :)

 

Fawkes (they/them)
Program Manager & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

This would be great. Can I just add that these function should be configurable via Group Policy/Intune Policies.
Edge should definitely not remember the password to switch to a new profile.
The way I see this functioning is something like Windows Fast User Switch, but for the browser

I cant express enough how important this is.

 

To have the feature to allow a password on your profile. How much sensitive data is stored on your profile and anyone can access it in two clicks.

 

Its absolutely crazy that this isnt a standard implemented feature in both Edge and Chrome. 

 

Absolutely necessary, especially for the work environment.

Do you have any update for this topic?

came here after searching how to enable the profile lock, thought it existed. 

Happy to see that is considered by the product team, hope to see it soon!

 @vangelis-agileactors  

I thought the same, so googled it and came to know that the feature did not exist

Hi

 

We have a use case where this feature would be of great use. 

 

We operate retail shops where computers are open to all staff members. We use MS365 with a generic shop account but the manager have his own MS365 account where sensitive documents are stored

 

We would like to create a shop profile without password and a manager profile with password protection. 

 

 

your suggestion Must be implemented. it is very important for me, and surely for many others

I work on a shared office computer where multiple users have access. Having a password protected profile would allow me to set up my profile the way I like it with the passwords for different sites saved and/or autofilled without worrying about other users accessing my accounts. When I do the main log in to access the computer as my work has set up I could then access my edge profile, login and have my set up ready to go. when I leave the computer I can feel confident that someone else isn't writing reports under my name

Is there any update regarding this? This would be very useful especially while working with Work laptop and sharing laptop with friends/family. Since the preferences and passwords are saved on the profile, they would be able to access our contents as well. This is a must have feature.

Is there any progress on this, and will it be implemented in the Linux edition? I'm putting together an "Edge OS" Linux Distro that has Edge as it's only app, and having Edge handle authentication by itself would be a lot more secure

Even if it just requires a pin whenever you launch a profile or switch to a profile from a different one, with a way to lock a running profile without closing it.

Is there any update regarding this feature? I was hoping if we could learn when will this feature be available
It's almost about 1 year since the request. Someone have any update about this feature? It's crazy because user profiles have too sensitive data. For example, I would like to save my personal work as 365 customer using my shared work computer and it's impossible because I can't just login and expose to risk of forget a logged in session with my all personal data available to free access.

For me, not give this properly attention could be a bad idea for Microsoft Edge integrations in this phase where Microsoft plans to use features like copilot for deep support.

Probably the best solution I found exists on Chrome:

 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lockpw/kjcloihghgncbdkaafgkckbokjnehfmo

 

Hence I continue to use chrome. 

@l-Matt-I I did like you for a small Business and used LockPW on Chrome... But it's got limitations (can't automatically generate new profiles on chrome, difficult to centrally manage settings etc).

Like all of you I've been very much looking for the ability to add a password lock when switching profiles.

Use case is always the same: Central computer used by multiple people (e.g. retail store) and you have youngsters that are here just for a few days/weeks.

You want to use the same account on computers to share files, data, and have a full O365 licence to access the full MS suite etc and for ease of usage.

But you want the young store reps to have their own basic account and log in some way to Edge with all their credentials and links stored. Like that we can track online who has performed what activity.

So our plan was to add their basic accounts as profiles and ask them to lock them with a password (or use their basic account microsoft password).

Like that the master Edge is logged to the central store account, but the reps can add their personal basic account, and they are the only ones that can access their own credentials/passwords/links.
How is this not a feature yet? This would be very useful for me. I will share my personal example which everyone at my workplace would agree.

We have 2 main computers in our office, of which around 11 people share across different shift times and days.

We all have to log into up to 10 different websites in order to do our job, all of which are private and confidential.

Currently, we have to sign in to everything separately.

If we could all have a profile each, which will have our own passwords saved/auto-filled on our separate profiles and have these profiles password protected so that we could not access eachothers accounts, this would be amazing.

This would stop us from having to sign in to multiple sites constantly throughout our shifts when we could just "log-in" to our profile and then seamlessly use the sites we need without having to log in all of the time.