Roboform Password Manager

Roboform stores your user names, passwords and other confidential information in encrypted files on your computer using powerful AES encryption. When you visit a password-protected Web site, RoboForm automatically retrieves your data and logs you in with one click. All of your passwords and other important information are protected using your Master Password. So you remember one Master Password and RoboForm remembers the rest. Imagine yourself visiting a website that requires a username and password to access. You simply move your cursor up to the browser's menu bar and click a button. The correct username and password for the website you're on is automatically entered. You don't need to remember anything - everything is done automatically by Roboform. Roboform really is as simple as that. There's nothing to configure and precious little to learn.

I had used FireFox's password manager and liked it but it only worked with Firefox and some of the sites I use had to be used with Internet Explorer. RoboForm works with both. Plus, you can go in and actually see the unencrypted passwords, print out the password, create a profile for completing on-line forms and much more. It was easy to install and set up ... very intuitive. They have a demo that you can run through quickly upon set up which gives you the basic how-to's and from there I was able to do everything I needed. It remembers the passwords and other logon info when you enter it the first time ... and then populates it at the click of a button the next time you're there. It'll also populate forms and such. I like that it only populates these fields when you click the button to tell it to ... as oppose to automatically doing it.

The real test was when my computer started to die and I had to re-install on a new laptop. I figured that I was safe because I could print out my passwords and would just have to re-enter again the first time. But, instead, I was able to copy over the password file to the new computer and pick right up where I was without having to re-enter any passwords.

RoboForm Password Manager was named PC Magazine Editor's Choice, and CNET Download.com's Software of the Year. RoboForm allows you to:

• Manage your passwords and Log In automatically.
• Fill long registration and checkout forms with one click.
• Encrypt your passwords to achieve complete security.
• Generate random passwords to maximize password strength.
• Fight Phishing by entering passwords only on matching web sites.
• Defeat Keyloggers by not using the keyboard to type passwords.
• Back up your passwords and copy them between computers.
• Synchronize passwords between computers using GoodSync.
• Portable: RoboForm2Go runs from USB key, no install needed.
• Phone-friendly: sync your passwords to Windows Mobile and Palm.
• Universal: works with Internet Explorer, AOL/MSN, Firefox.
• IE 7 and Vista are fully supported.

To compare with Roboform, IE's limited functionality is not nearly as complete as offered by Roboform, and is also not nearly as secure. IE recognizes username and password fields on webpages by the names of the fields on the pages. So when you go to a webpage, you might be presented with lots of different options to choose from, because lots of different webpages might have used the same field name. And so you still have to remember your username, even though, after selecting the appropriate username, IE might possibly then enter the correct password.

IE doesn't show your stored passwords, and you just see a row of dots when it fills the password data in. So if you're switching to another computer, you don't necessarily know what your password was before and can't easily find out. Neither can you conveniently edit the passwords in IE.

Roboform runs on Microsoft Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003 (all 32-bit versions).

It is compatible with Internet Explorer versions from 5.0 and forward. If you're not running the most up-to-date version of IE, and with all the latest patches, now might be a good time to do that, too.

It can also work with most recent versions of Netscape, Mozilla and Firefox. In addition, there are at least 50 other browsers it runs with (I didn't even know there were that many browsers).

There are only a very few browsers it can not work with; Opera being perhaps the best known of these.

Installing Roboform is very simple. Download the 2 MB file (for free) from the Roboform website, then run the downloaded program to install it on your computer.

You can safely accept all the defaults in the installation, and allow Roboform to import in the password information it finds stored in your browser as well.

This is an eye-opening thing - watching Roboform find all your most secret user name and password data. If Roboform can do this, imagine what a hacker could do, just as easily.

I chose to have Roboform delete the password information out of the browser, because with Roboform, there is no longer any need for the data to be kept in the browser as well.