My password habits, until recently, have been very lazy and unsecure. I had just a few passwords that I used repeatedly and whenever I forgot one, it was a hit and miss affair. One of my standard passwords actually was “password”. I can laugh at myself about this because I know I am not alone.
Realizing the error of my ways I’ve been making a concerted effort to be more secure with my passwords. Getting serious about security however also requires a reliable system to keep track of all of these new passwords. It was with this mindset that I began using 1Passwd. This application supercharges the keychain, but that is just the beginning.
When you are on a website that requires you to generate a password, 1Passwd, creates it for you with the degree of security (and digits) you require. It even will exclude confusingly similar characters like “0” and “O” if you tell it to. Once 1Passwd makes the password for you, it also remembers it.
1Passwd just doesn’t remember your user name and passwords however, you can set up an entire identity with all of the common fields such as address, credit card and just about everything else you can think of a website may require. You can than click on the 1Passwd “Fill with Identity” button and it does the work for you. Usually it gets them all right. A few times it put the wrong data i, but generally was right on. An interesting point about the auto form filling in 1Passwd is that it only works on domains it remembers. So if you get sucked into a fake PayPal website it will not fill in your name and password. Indeed it may help you catch a phishing attempt when 1Passwd doesn’t autofill. Another side benefit is when you fill in passwords and credit cards with mouse clicks, key loggers will not capture your data.
The program integrates effortlessly into all the major Mac browsers: Firefox, Camino, Safari, OmniWeb, DEVONagent, and Flock. It drops a little button right into your browser’s bar that allows you to access all of its features with one or two clicks. It also pulled a bunch of my already saved security settings into it when I first set it up. This is also nice for all those users who like to jump around browsers. For instance, you can save a password in Safari and later use it in Camino.
If you run multiple Macs it also syncs through .mac. I did not use this feature extensively but I did test it out and it seemed to work just fine.
The developers are really hands on and eager to make this application better. They are in getting close to rolling out a new feature that stores your information online behind security that is supposed to rival that used by financial institutions. If it works, it would be great for my iPhone. I am definitely going to need some convincing however before I agree to put my important data “out there”. I am very interested, however, in seeing how this pans out.
Licensing 1Passwd will set you back $29.95. I think it is worth it just in saved time and improved security. They have a limited demonstration available at
their website so take a look for yourself.
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