firefox should not ask for master password at launch

[rouble]

Firefox asks for the master password when it launches. That sounds pretty intuitive and logical... except, what if for a particular browsing session I do not visit any sites that will require Firefox to access my stored passwords? I think this just spoils the user experience.

Here is the particular use case I have in mind: My friend uses my computer to just check the weather or something. I don't think Firefox should spoil his browsing experience with a nagging 'please enter the master password for the software security device' pop up.

A smarter thing for Firefox to do would be to ask for master password only when it goes to a site where it has a password stored. I believe this will improve the user experience of people who set up master passwords.

tia,
rouble

[Gingerbread Man]

ask for master password only when it goes to a site where it has a password stored.

That's how it works for me. I only have to deal with being prompted for the master password when autofill is disabled, once for each password field

Are you sure you're not loading pages at startup that have password fields on them?

[rouble]

Even when I open firefox with no pages, just a blank tab I get prompted for my master password (after some amount of time interval). I am running Firefox 3.5.3 and this behavior is consistent on OS X (10.6) and Windows XP.

[rouble]

After some investigation, it seems that the xmarks extension (formerly known as foxmarks) causes this to happen. I will follow up with the xmarks development team.