Pick of the week: 1Password
Jun 13
Pick of the week, Technology 1Password, Apps, iPhone, MacOSX 2 Comments
This weeks pick is an tool that is usualy the first thing I install on a new computer1. It’s an app that keeps my personal information safe. It’s an app called 1Password that totally replaces MacOSX’ build in Keychain.
So why would I want to replace the build in Keychain? While the build in Keychain is pretty sweet, 1Password just that much sweeter! You only need to remember one password, and this one password will let you access all your stored passwords.
You can choose to use the build in Keychain as storage backend, but I recommend that you use 1Passwords own Agile Keychain format.
These are the features2 you’ll gain when using 1Password instead of the build in Keychain:
- Store and provide easy access to more than one account for any website.
- Correctly handle financial websites which often disable storing passwords in Safari’s AutoFill.
- Integrate with multiple browsers, including Safari, Fluid, Firefox, DEVONagent, OmniWeb, NetNewsWire, Flock, Netscape Navigator, and Camino.
- Eliminate the need to synchronize your data between browsers.
- Support multiple identities, such as personal and business identities. You can even create fake identities for websites you do not trust.
- Fill credit card information with one click.
- Import information from a multitude of sources.
- Integrate a strong password generator directly into the browser for quick and painless generation of super strong passwords.
- Sync your information to the iPhone/iPod touch, as well as Palm3 devices.
The killer feature of 1Password is the ability to bring all of your passwords and credentials with you in a safe and secure way on your iPhone4. And with the recent 2.0 upgrade of 1Password touch the syncing part just got a major overhaul, and it is now incredibly easy and hassel free that you’ll want to sync it all the time.
Later this year Agile will release 1Password 3.0, which is a completely rewritten version of 1Password based on the new Agile Keychain – I can’t wait for it to be released!
- And by computer I mean Mac [↩]
- I totally ripped the feature list from this page in the 1Password online documentation [↩]
- But why would you want to do that? [↩]
- or other mobile device, but why would you want a mobile device that is not an iPhone? [↩]
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Sep 02, 2009 @ 14:05:07
is that program safe? can I trust it? how could u guarantee that noone can access it through internet ..and access into my iphone and.. steall al the information?
Sep 02, 2009 @ 14:47:56
I consider it very safe!
It is at least as safe as Apples build in Keychain App and I would say that 1Password is even safer. 1Password does everything that Apples Keychain App and much more.
I trust 1Password with all of my passwords and credit card information.
None of your data is stored on the internet and the data on your mac is encrypted and password protected. If you provide a good password your data will be safe.
On the iPhone your data is encrypted as well and there is 2 levels of password protection. A simple pin code and a master password. For random internet fora I only use the pin code, but for the more important stuff like my credit cards, my Apple developer credentials and my blog I require the master password.
I see no easy way anyone could steel your data through the internet. In addition to storing passwords, 1Password also lets you generate very strong passwords for you to use on the internet instead of you having to makeup new passwords for each site you frequent.
Many people use the same password on multiple sites which I consider very bad, because if one site get compromised an attacker will now have access to all the other sites where you have used that password. Using 1Password will help you maintain a good password policy.
Should you loose your iPhone or your Mac the data is still protected with encryption that requires your password to unlock.
As with everything that deals with security, you can never be 100% secure and given enough time and CPU power any encryption can be broken. I believe that with 1Password you are as safe as you need to be with the current level of technology.
The weakest link in 1Password is the password you provide! But because you only have to remember 1 password, you can make it quite complex and still be able to remember it.