We’ve been treated to another Chrome leak which shows exactly how a previously leaked feature – the option to share your passwords with other Chrome users – will work.
This again comes from a font of much browser-related knowledge on X (formerly Twitter), Leopeva64.
Previously, Leopeva64 discovered the ability to share passwords on Chrome’s password management page (in testing, back at the end of June), and now they’ve found out how this works.
If you don't have a family group, the dialog will inform you that (for now) it is only possible to share passwords with members of those groups, and there will be a link to the website where you can create the family group.August 30, 2023
You’ll be able to click and share passwords – the ones you have stored within Chrome – but only with those who are a member of a Google ‘family group’ apparently.
If you haven’t set up a family group, trying to use this feature will prompt you to do so.
So, your next question is likely – what’s a family group?
Well, the name pretty much gives it away: it’s a small group – of up to six – of your family members with which you can easily share things from the Google ecosystem. (With those shareable elements consisting of passwords, as noted – plus the family group also facilitates functionality such as setting ground rules for what your kids can do online).
Analysis: Still some way to go
This is a pretty nifty feature, in theory, although note it’s one still very much in development for Google’s Chrome browser. As shown in the tweet above, while the groundwork is all in place for the sharing passwords ability, it still doesn’t work – a ‘something went wrong’ error pops up when attempting to use it.
When it’s finally working, and rolled out to the finished version of the Chrome browser, it’ll be a useful tool when you want to give another family member access to one of your online accounts for whatever reason. It’ll make this a seamless and more secure process – well, certainly more secure than, say, jotting down your login details on a post-it note for that person.
Google is always busy adding new features to Chrome, of course, but we’ve seen a flurry of activity for the browser in recent times. That includes the addition of further safety measures around Chrome extensions, and a revamp on mobile to supercharge your searching powers, not to mention the possibility of in-line previews for links in web pages which could revolutionize browsing.
All of this is part of the push to keep Chrome as the top jack-of-all-trades offering as it’s ranked in our roundup of the best web browsers.
