After closing and re-opening PasswordMaker, this global settings checkbox becomes unchecked. This is a bit of a pain, as it basically results in my generated passwords showing up in plain text anytime I'm in a hurry. I've seen this bug reported a while back, but wanted to re-report it with some more details since I didn't see a resolution. Here are the detailed steps to reproduce:
Firefox 3.0.1
Windows XP SP2
PasswordMaker 1.7.2
1. Open a new instance of Firefox
2. Hit "Ctrl + `" to open PasswordMaker
3. Go to the "Global Settings" tab
4. Let's assume that "Mask Generated Password with Asterisks" is unchecked. Check it.
5. Type a few characters in the Master Password field, let's say "asdf"
6. Click the "Close" button in the lower-right
7. Open PasswordMaker again with "Ctrl + `"
8. Note that "Mask Generated.." is still checked
9. Type a few characters in the Master Password field again. I'll type "asdf" again for my example.
10. Click "Close"
11. One more time, open the tool using "Ctrl + `"
12. Now the "Mask Generated Password with Asterisks" is unchecked.
Sometimes I see the problem happen after step 7, but it always happens after step 11. Hope this helps.