Supported are the web browsers Google Chrome and Internet Explorer as well as the desktop applications Google Talk, Google Picasa, Google Desktop Search and Gmail Notifier.

Google Password Decrypter displays the username of the currently logged in user as well as the version of Internet Explorer. A click on the Start Recovery button will initiate a scan for installed Google applications on the computer system.

If the password is stored for any supported applications it will automatically be decrypted by the program. The software then lists the application the password was found, the Google username and the Google password in its interface.

The password is hidden by default for security purposes. A click on the Show Password button displays the passwords.

It has to be noted that only passwords and usernames of the currently logged in user are discovered. To display usernames and passwords of another user select Run As from the right-click menu first or log into that user account in Windows before starting the application.

The Google account information can be saved as a text or html file by clicking on the links in the program’s interface.

The developer has created a page with information on the procedure that is being used to recover the Google username and password. This page can be accessed here.

Google Password Decrypter is a portable program for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. It can be downloaded from the developer’s homepage.

The option to enter a cell phone number and recover the Google account password by SMS was only available to US users. Google seems to have changed this frequently as German users (and probably users from other countries such as the UK, France or Canada) can now add a cell phone number to their account as well to use the SMS for password recovery.

The option is available after logging in (at any Google service), selecting the My Account link on the top right corner of the screen and the Change password recovery options link under Security. Please let us know where you are from and if you are seeing the SMS option under security.

The common security options to avoid this horror scenario are a secondary email and a security question that can be used to recover a Google account. Google users from the United States have another option at their disposal which has been added recently to Google: The ability to recover an account password by a SMS that is send to a cell phone.

The option is currently only visible to US visitors. The Googlesystem blog suggested to use a US proxy server so that the option would become visible to users from other countries as well. I personally would not be using a proxy server to log into important web account. The possibility is there however and you can check out their blog post for some pointers. It is apparently possible to select another country from the list which makes it strange why they are not enabling the option for all users.

Users from the US or those using a US based proxy can open the Google Accounts page to enter a cell phone number as an additional method of restoring a Google account. It is likely that Google will roll out the feature soon for other countries as well.