Tapsure is an extension for Firefox for Mobile that alleviates this problem by allowing you to input passwords on websites by tapping a rhythm on your touchscreen rather than hunting through the device’s keyboard.

How does it work?

Install Tapsure here, and after restarting Firefox for Mobile, log into one of your online accounts as usual. After you log in, you’ll see a notification from Tapsure:

Choose “Yes,” and you’ll see this dialog:

(If you choose “No,” Tapsure will never ask about that specific password again. If you just close the notification, Tapsure will ask the next time you use the password.)

Here comes the fun part: think of a song, a pattern, a rhythm, or even some Morse code that you want to use to log in to sites that use this password – it can be anything, as long as it doesn’t have more than a full second between taps. Got it? Ok, now tap that song/pattern/rhythm/Morse code on the screen. Tapsure will save it and close the dialog.

Now, the next time you’re logging into a site that uses that password, instead of slowly typing out your super-secure 20-character password, just hold your finger down on the password field until you see this:

Now tap out your pattern from the previous step, and Tapsure will automatically fill in your password for you. (If you tap the pattern incorrectly, Tapsure will shake it off and give you another chance.)

You can repeat these steps for as many passwords as you like – Tapsure will remember them all.

Tapsure Settings

In the add-on options panel, you can reset all of the patterns you’ve saved with Tapsure to start over. (This will also clear the list of passwords that Tapsure won’t ask you to save a pattern for.)

Is this secure?

Yes, Tapsure saves your patterns and passwords using Firefox’s built-in password manager, so it just as secure as having Firefox remember your passwords. Tapsure also has the benefit that someone could closely watch you log in to a website without knowing your password, because it’s harder to discern and remember a tapped pattern than it is to watch the keys that you press.

Couldn’t I just tell Firefox to remember the password?

You could… but if you use the same password on more than one site (which I estimate that 99.9% of people do), you’d have to type it out with excruciating care on every single site that you use it on.

Miscellaneous

Try and use a semi-unique pattern – don’t choose Happy Birthday. It’s like using the password “password.”

Tapsure probably works better on capacitive touchscreens than resistive touch screens, simply due to the fact that it’s easier to tap a quick pattern when you don’t have to press down firmly on each tap.

Tapsure was entered in the Firefox Mobile Add-ons Cup. If you want to see it win, please write to your senators and representatives.

Where can I install it again?

Or, you can search for “Tapsure” in the “Get Add-ons” portion of Firefox for Mobile.

I got some great feedback after I updated URL Fixer to be compatible with Fennec, Mozilla’s mobile browser, and I’m happy to announce that I’ve been able to add Fennec compatibility to four more add-ons:

• TwitterBar: Post to Twitter from Firefox’s address bar
• AutoAuth: Automatically submits authentication dialogs
• YouTube Comment Snob (still in the sandbox): Filter out lame comments on YouTube
• Slashdotter (still in the sandbox): Adds features to the Slashdot website

So far, I’ve found it pretty easy to port add-ons to Fennec, with the following caveats:

• You can’t install add-ons in Fennec by opening them from your computer; I wrote a script to copy the add-on directly into the Fennec profile, much like an add-on IV drip – straight into the bloodstream!
• There’s no easy access to the error console , but you can open it manually if you grab the address from Firefox.
• No DOM Inspector. For now, just browse the source.

It seems that all of these issues could be solved with a “Fennec Add-on Development” extension; maybe that will be my next project, unless easier solutions already exist.

Fennec is the codename for Mozilla’s work-in-progress mobile browser for phones and smaller computing devices, and since it supports extensions just like Firefox, I’ve started adding Fennec compatibility to the extensions I’ve written (when it makes sense).

URL Fixer version 1.5 is fully Fennec-compatible. I think it’s even more useful in Fennec than in Firefox, given the ease with which one can fat-finger a touch-screen or mini-qwerty keyboard versus on a full-size computer keyboard.

(The screenshot above is from Fennec running on Mac OSX, so your visual results may vary depending on your device.)