It has happened to us so many times that it's impossible to enumerate: when we try to write a password to access a service, the logical thing is that said password appears hidden, protected by asterisks or dots. The problem is that this can work against us, since we don't know if we typed it correctly.
Although there are other shortcuts that allow entering the password without errors, the web inspector integrated into the browser can help us temporarily remove the asterisks and see what we've written.
Suppose you have memorized a 16-character password for a particular service. You have no trouble writing it, but one of the keys starts failing. You press Enter, and the service spits out the classic incorrect password error. You look at the password; however, it is protected by asterisks, and it's a bit hard to tell if the asterisks are fifteen or sixteen. A fairly normal reaction in these cases is to delete the password and try again. If the problem persists, one begins to doubt the password itself, and takes the trouble to write it in Notepad to see that everything is fine.
How to view passwords hidden by asterisks
The alternative is to appeal to a slightly more technical trick, and it involves the web inspector integrated into the main browsers. Type the password in its field, right-click on it, and choose from the context menu the option 'Inspect Element' or simply 'Inspect' (it might be 'inspect' or 'explore the element', depending on the browser). The inspector will open focused on the element, and you will see a field called 'input type="password"'. The trick is reduced to double-clicking on the word 'password' and changing it to 'text'. The asterisks will disappear immediately, and you will be able to see the password you entered.
This could also be useful to recover some password, but really that is a function available in any password manager. There is also the possibility that some fields are more protected and cannot be directly explored with the inspector. Still, it's a good trick to have on hand.
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