there are mistakes, and then there are mistakes that immediately receive an offer of archival services.
i reblogged this because Firefox asking whether it should save the password i just got wrong has the exact energy of a waiter appearing beside a shattered wine glass to ask if i would like that boxed up.
no, thank you. i would like the browser to avert its eyes while i try the same password again with one capital letter, one exclamation point, and the rapidly deteriorating confidence of a man defusing a bomb he apparently assembled himself.
the prompt has arrived before the verdict
the password manager is doing what password managers do: noticing a credential field and offering to remember what went into it. Mozilla’s own documentation explains the ordinary, useful version of this feature. the problem is that the prompt sometimes arrives with the timing of a documentary crew asking for comment while you are still falling down the stairs.
the site has said “incorrect.” the browser has said “save this?” somewhere between those two systems is a tiny gap where context was supposed to live.
this is one of the more specific humiliations produced by software that is determined to be proactive. autocorrect confidently preserving the wrong name. a calendar asking whether the meeting that just ruined your afternoon should repeat weekly. a shopping app inviting you to buy again the item you returned because it caught fire.
the computer is not judging you. it has simply automated the part where a coworker repeats your mistake back to you in a meeting.
good error recovery should understand shame
software does not need emotions. it does need sequence. if the login failed, wait. if the login succeeds, then offer to save the credential. this is not artificial intelligence. it is artificial tact.
an authentication screen is already an accusation with a text box attached. maybe the password is wrong. maybe Caps Lock is on. maybe the site changed its rules without telling anyone. maybe i am trying the password from a different account because every service demanded a unique one and then punished me for taking that advice seriously.
none of these moments need a museum curator leaning into frame to ask, “shall we preserve this?”
please forget what you have seen here
password managers are good. unique passwords are good. having a browser remember them is much better than discovering, during an airport layover, that your one universal password has apparently become French.
but help should arrive after success, not during the autopsy.
Firefox, i appreciate the offer. for now, please close the tiny filing cabinet and let me fail privately.