Is autocomplete="off" compatible with all modern browsers?

Question

I've just been given a requirement to prevent browsers from saving data entered into specific form fields. It's been years since I've done web dev, and this is a relatively new capability. I was able to find the form field property autocomplete="off", but I can't seem to find any documentation indicating which browsers support it. Can anyone point me in the right direction of a chart of form attributes and browser compatibility?

Answer 1

Be aware that all major browsers are moving towards ignoring the attribute for password fields.

I can only offer anecdotal evidence, but I've yet to come across a browser that fails to respect autocomplete="off", this experience covers:

• Firefox 1.5+ (Windows and Ubuntu)
• Opera 6+ (Windows and Ubuntu)
• Chrome v2+ (Windows and Ubuntu)
• Epiphany 0.8 (ish) (Ubuntu)
• Midori (I can't remember which version)
• Safari v1+ (Windows)
• IE 4 - 8, Windows.

I'm aware that Greasemonkey scripts, and presumably other user-scripts, can disable the autocomplete setting.

There's a couple of articles I found that might be useful to you:

1. How to turn off form auto-completion
2. Using auto-complete in html forms

Answer 2

Password managers now ignore the autocomplete attribute for password fields in the major browsers as of:

• IE11
• Firefox 30
• Chrome 34
• Safari seems to have an opt-in option to ignore them

It should still work fine for disabling autocomplete on form fields, but no longer affects the password manager.

Answer 3

As of Chrome v34, autocomplete="off" is now ignored by default.

This somewhat debatable feature can be disabled in the flags configuration by visiting chrome://flags

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Chrome-34-Seeks-to-Save-All-Your-Passwords-436693.shtml

Answer 4

If you're able to use JavaScript and jQuery, you can place this on load of the html:

$('#theform input').val('');

Answer 5

Except for Maxthon Browser I think, they are famous in china and making a name now worldwide. They don't treat Autotocomplete=off power very well. It won't work with them.

Answer 6

Some solution is not working in modern browsers.

Another solution link is given here. which works in all modern browsers.

Input type=password, don't let browser remember the password

You can use autocomplete="off" in this given soluton

Answer 7

Matter of fact, both username and password fields doesn't react to AutoComplete=off in all the latest browsers.

Answer 8

td;dr: To check on compatibility across browsers, here is an official MDN doc on turning off autocompletion with the link for compatibility - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Security/Securing_your_site/Turning_off_form_autocompletion

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A little longer answer: Your issue is because of Chrome's autofill feature, and here is Chrome's stance on it in this bug link - https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=468153#c164

To put it simply, there are two cases -

• [CASE 1]: Your input type is something other than password. In this case, the solution is simple, and has three steps.

  • Add name attribute to input
  • name should not start with a value like email or username, otherwise Chrome still ends up showing the dropdown. For example, name="emailToDelete" shows the dropdown, but name="to-delete-email" doesn't. Same applies for autocomplete attribute.
  • Add autocomplete attribute, and add a value which is meaningful for you, like new-field-name

  It will look like this, and you won't see the autofill (and the value you enter won't be cached) for this input again for the rest of your life -

  <input type="text/number/something-other-than-password" name="x-field-1" autocomplete="new-field-1" />
  

• [CASE 2]: input type is password

  • Well, in this case, irrespective of your trials, Chrome will show you the dropdown to manage passwords / use an already existing password and show the prompt to update the cached password. Firefox will also do something similar, and same will be the case with all other major browsers. Have a look at the MDN doc link I shared at the very top.
  • In this case, if you really want to stop the user from seeing the dropdown to manage passwords or the prompt to save the credentials, you will have to play around with JS to switch input type, as mentioned in the other related questions.