One of the most basic security rules is to never use the same password in different sites or services, and now Google helps you remember it with this Password Alert for Chrome, that alerts you whenever you type your Google passwords in non-Google sites.
The Password Alert is a Chrome extension made by Google (it's open-source should you want to take a peek inside) that hopes to prevent this "digital cardinal sin" of using your Google password elsewhere. A mistake that is often made and promoted by sites, asking you to enter your Google password in order to find your Google friends, or whatever.
This extension is quite simple. Once you login to Google for the first time it creates a salted hash of your password, so it can later compare other passwords to it wihtout actually storing your real password. Should you type the same password on a site that doesn't belong to Google, it will alert you of the dangers and suggest you change you Google password to something unique. The extension also looks for fake Google login phishing sites, that try to fool users into typing their credentials.
Though I think this extension won't be necessary for the majority of our readers (that already know this basic security rule) it will certainly come in handy to install in all those computers we're often tasked to do "support work" (friends, family, etc.) where users might not know better.
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