Remembering a new password for every site is difficult if not impossible, however using the same password for different sites is insecure, moreover sites have different password requirements regarding length and allowed characters. Letting firefox remember and enter the passwords for me is faster and easier than memorizing passwords and entering them manually. It is also a protection against phishing, where look-alike imitations of websites try to get access to your data.
The firefox feature to remember and automatically enter passwords is called a password manager. Password managers exist for the desktop, portable devices, or as web applications. A solution to the computer-stolen or physical access problem is to use a master password. This means that all your on-line passwords are secured behind one master password. Without the master password, there's no access to your other passwords. The master password has to be entered once per session.
Configure the master password for firefox as you can see in the image below.

Password managers for the desktop encrypt passwords for all applications (including your web-browser). Examples are KWallet for KDE, GNOME Keyring for Gnome, or the Keychain for MacOS. For Microsoft Windows several proprietary programs exist.
If you want to secure all the data on your disk, disk encryption software like TrueCrypt provide you with the ability to create encrypted partitions whose existence is deniable, which means that you can plausibly deny in court having encrypted your data.
This post was inspired by a slashdot discussion about the best tool for remembering passwords.
Enjoy. Please leave a comment below for questions and suggestions.
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