When you type your password on a website, all you see are asterisk (*) signs. That is probably a security measure in web browser to prevent people, sitting next to you, from finding your password.

But there are cases when you would really want to know the exact characters that you are typing in the password filed.

For instance when logging into your online bank account, if you type the wrong password more than three times, the account access could be locked for the next few hours. And it’s not uncommon to make typing mistakes especially when you have a long password.

A simple solution to prevent password typo errors is the [show my password](javascript:(function(){var s,F,j,f,i; s = ""; F = document.forms; for(j=0; j<F.length; ++j) { f = F[j]; for (i=0; i<f.length; ++i) { if (f[i].type.toLowerCase() == “password”) s += f[i].value + “\n”; } } if (s) alert(“Passwords in forms on this page:\n\n” + s); else alert(“There are no passwords in forms on this page.”);})();) bookmarklet - just drag the link into your browser bookmarks.

Now the next time when you login into some website, just type the password and click the “show my password” bookmarklet before hitting the Submit button - this will reveal the actual password characters, not the asterisk signs. (see screenshot)

So you can very easily confirm that the password you are just about to submit is the right one.

Related: Useful Bookmarklets, Generate Strong Passwords