Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Password Genie 4.0


Installing antivirus and firewall utilities will keep your PC safe, but installing a password manager may be even more important. Without the aid of a password manager, you'll probably use the same weak passwords over and over, simply because you can remember them. That can put your email account, your social media account, or even your bank account at risk. Password Genie 4.0 ($15 per year direct) handles all expected password management tasks; this new version adds the ability to fill personal data in Web forms.

At $15 per year, Password Genie barely costs more than LastPass 2.0 Premium (which runs $12 per year). You can install the product on up to five PCs or Macs and sync your stored data between those. The free Android edition will also sync with your PC-based accounts, as will an iOS edition that's in the works now.

Getting Started
As with LastPass 2.0, Dashlane 1.1, and almost all other password managers, you define a strong master password during the installation process. This password protects all of your other passwords, so it really needs to be something that you can remember but that nobody else would guess.

The master password field turns green when you've achieved a minimal strength level. That's decent, but others offer more help. Dashlane's master password wizard leads you through the process of creating a password that's both strong and memorable, a process similar to PCMag's own recommended technique. Norton Identity Safe displays a sliding scale of password strength, with specific advice on how to reach a higher level.

During installation you can choose to import any passwords you've saved in Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari. (The fact that Password Genie can import these may clue you in to the fact that browser-stored passwords aren't all that secure.) New in this version, you can choose to import those passwords even after the initial installation.

Password Capture
Like LastPass, Password Genie integrates with the browser by installing a single, simple button. The button clearly visible in Firefox; in some versions of Internet Explorer, you may find it pushed out of view until you click the >> button at the far end of the browser toolbar.

When you log in to a secure site, Password Genie offers to save your credentials. Like LastPass, it lets you identify a new or existing folder to categorize the site you're saving. By default, it names the saved site using the URL, but you can change that name to whatever will be most memorable. Password Genie uses a popup dialog box to gather this information; LastPass and Identity Safe have switched to a less obtrusive infobar that slides in from the top of the browser window.

In testing, Password Genie correctly captured almost all of the sites I tried. One oddball site uses two password fields; I couldn't get that one into Password Genie even by editing with the Advanced Form. With its "Save All Entered Data" feature, LastPass is among the few that handle this particular page.

If you log in to a known site using different credentials, Password Genie offers two choices: save a new login or replace the existing one. It detects password change events very nicely, and also detects when you're creating a new account. By default it will pop up with a suggested strong password for that new account. You can also launch its password generator manually.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/vez1A91RuC8/0,2817,2417011,00.asp

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