Password Managers

At one time, I swore by RoboForm as I felt it was the best way to handle password management on Windows. Unfortunately, the company that creates this otherwise great software has decided not to join the ranks of other companies that understand that we are becoming a cross platform society. Hence, I can no longer say this is a product that I recommend as there are other similair products that are not only working on Windows, OS X and Linux - but happen to be free as well (no pro-version). It remains a solid product for Windows users, but the company that supports the product is apparently not too interested in supporting non-Windows users.

Today, I would like to highlight some alternative password management applications.

• 1passwd - OS X users rejoice, there is a very tight little program that can make your password management a breeze. Fits very snuggly into Safari and also provides you with a Firefox toolbar should wish to go this route. As a matter of fact, it can work with any browser you care to toss at it.
• KeePassX - Slick looking on Ubuntu, and likely on Windows/OS X as well. It’s too bad that documentation was never on the menu. I tested this out myself with Ubuntu Feisty and a web based email account. Due to the lack of documentation, here is what you must do in the app to get things to work.
  • First create a new database
  • Then create a “group”
  • From there, add a new entry. In my case, the username, url and password for my test webmail account.
  • To use - browse to the location of the form to be logged into. In the application itself, locate the title of the form info, right click and choose perform autotype. It worked flawlessly.
• PasswordVault - I can get the software to take me to the needed webpage. But from there, it is a glorified clipboard. As far as I can see, there is no “autofill” function for the “lite” edition. The pro-edition does provide this function, for Windows and the Mac.

What do I recommend? I think that 1passwd is the best for OS X users, while I tend to lean with KeePass for Windows and Linux. But this is just my take.