✅ Restore "Show Cards" and "Show Identities" options in browser extension

[grb]

I modified the topic title to be more precise (was: “Restore credit card and identity accessibility in the new browser extension”).

I should explain that in the new browser extension UI (since 2024.12.0), the intended behavior is for cards and identities to show up under “Autofill Suggestions” (if and only if the loaded webpage contains input fields for Identity or Card data, respectively). From a clarification posted by @Micah_Edelblut during beta testing:

@Micah_Edelblut

Cards and identities appear in autofill suggestions when the user is on a page with a form that we detect as a valid place to fill that data. So if you are on a page with no credit card entry form, we do not show your cards in the autofill suggestions. This is a change over the current behavior.

You can experience the intended functionality here (for Cards) and here (for Identities).

However, there are two major issues with the current functionality for displaying Cards and Identities:

1. The Display of Cards & Identities as Autofill Suggestions is Broken

A bug report here demonstrates that the algorithm used for deciding whether to display Cards and Identities has a failure rate of 90%. Even though Bitwarden is not acknowledging this as a bug, it clearly is a bug, and it is a serious one [Update: A revised version of the bug report has now been acknowledged]. Even if Bitwarden makes some incremental progress in improving their form detection algorithm, it will never be 100% reliable (just like we still do not get 100% success on detection of username/password input fields during autofilling of login credentials, even after 8 years of development). Therefore, unless Bitwarden brings back the ability to display Cards and Identities on the Vault page, we will be stuck with situations in which the necessary vault items are hidden from view when opening the browser extension.

2. Viewing Card/Identity Data Requires Extra Steps

There are common use cases when one needs to look up Card or Identity data for purposes other than autofilling an online form in an open web page. A very common example would be when providing such information by telephone. A user who enables the options to “Show Cards” and/or “Show Identities” will want such data at their fingertips. Having to unlock one’s vault is already a barrier, but having done so, the required information should be one click away (as previously, in the old UI prior to 2024.12.0).