Masked passwords pose a significant useability issue which can be avoided. Masked passwords often lead to user frustration and possibly encourage users to chose simple passwords that are easy to enter without making mistakes.
Further, the security benefits from masked passwords are likely minimal for most users and applications. However, there are situations and applications that legitimately benefits from masked password fields, and to cover all bases that best solution might be to enable the user to decide wether masking is warranted or not.
This can be achieved with a simple javascript toggle function:
function switchType(obj){
if(obj.getAttribute('type')=='text')
{
obj.setAttribute('type','password');
}else{
obj.setAttribute('type','text');
}
obj.focus();
}
This function is then called when the user checks a checkbox:
To view an example, click here. The full source code can be seen by right clicking and selecting view source code (or the equivalent)
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