KeePass is free and easy to use

I highly recommend it for passwords, you can store the db on a usb drive, so you can physically disconnect from the computer when not using

http://keepass.info/

Peter,

Will KeePass recognise form fields in Web pages and autopopulate the info into them for you?

Or for that matter, does anyone know if any other free password managers will?

John

John,

Yes… to some degree, but I don’t use it. It’s a functin called auto-type, and you can fill in your SN and PW in one key stroke (and probably more stuff like address etc.). I don’t use it becasue it is not key logger resistant.

http://keepass.info/help/base/faq_tech.html#autotypelog

John,
thanks very much for the video – it sure made things clearer for me. I really appreciate that you went to all this trouble. You truly are a very nice person! Also, you did a terrific job on your first video!

Question: If I tried to log on to my gmail account from work, which password would I need to know? The Roboform master or the gmail account password?

Also, what is the Generate button about? Can Roboform generate a random password for sites. If so, can you see them somewhere if you needed to?

I guess I’m not really understanding the program because if you have to think up a password for each site, wouldn’t you have to make sure that it is a very secure one and then have it written down somewhere if you weren’t at your home computer?

Does Roboform only work on your own personal computer but you have to remember passwords when you are somewhere else?

I hope I’m making sense and not sounding too ditzy here. If I went to visit my sister in florida and used her computer, would I be able to get into my mail if I only remembered my roboform master password?

Thanks! You’re the Man!
Elaine

p.s. I’ve sold all my worldly possessions and am moving to Alaska with you.

@Elaine,

As long as you carry your roboform with you, all you need to know is your Roboform master password.

Maybe you don’t want to or can’t install roboform at work, then you can always use Roboform2Go which is a portable version of Roboform, and use it from your USB Memory Stick. This way, you would never have to enter your password anywhere and you don’t have to know your passwords. (Well of course, unless you have to use Linux or Mac somewhere!)

The generate button on Roboform allows you to generate passwords. It’s a useful tool. It can generate any lenght of passwords with characters from A-Z, a-z, 0-9 and any additional characters you want on the fly. Also, once generated you can click “Fill” and let it fill the password section on whatever website you’re in. (Just do not forget to click Copy and save afterwards :D)

Oh, BTW.. Do not forget to backup your Roboform data; which is stored in your “My Documents” folder by default.

@TheMan;

About Keepass, it’s not as compatible with browsers as Roboform is. It has an autofill function to fill in the password and usernames on a page. But it doesn’t work at all times and is slower in that than Roboform. But it’s normal because Keepass is different than Roboform, it’s created to store any passwords at any platforms and it is free!

But, you can use Keepass as your master password manager, since it can store any type of password you want and encrypt them as you wish.

Keepass also is compatible with Linux, Mac, Palm and Pocket PC’s. Which makes it better than Roboform in some ways, since Roboform only works at Windows.

Roboform is the most used piece of software on my pc. I use keepass for storing information also but i love the way roboform integrates into the browser so well.

John,
I was wondering what you used to make this video. Specifically, the computer screen video.
thanks,
Elaine

Elaine,

First of all, I used my Webcam to record the video and the audio. It is a Logitech Quickcam Ultra. For the portion where I was speaking I just used the free Logitech software to make a little video.

For the screen capture part, there are many options including:

• CamStudio – FREE (Install video)
• Adobe Captivate -$600
• Camtasia Studio – $300
• DemoCharge – $50

I was experimenting with Camtasia Studio on this video and it worked OK. But the output options seem weak to me. It didn’t seem to have any output that was specifically optimized for uploading to a video sharing site like YouTube, and this caused me all manner of headaches.

I’ll likely try some others for my next project to see if I can’t make the process easier.

John

[...] After scaring the crap out of everyone with How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords, One Man’s Blog has been kind enough to provide a solution to this problem in the form of a Roboform tutorial video. [...]

You are an idiot propaganda bullshit spreader! You are promoting your site and RoboForm, you claim you can crack my passwords? I welcome you moron and say GOOD LUCK!

Here you go all setup for you!
http://www.marmoramasons.com/admin

Go for it, and I will prove you are an idiot, and just to help you, it is only 9 characters, set it up easy for you. After you fail, I want you to post that you are not as smart as you state, and you are only pusghing bullshit products.

Hogan,

My reputation and identity on the Web are well established. Millions of people have relied on the information I provide on HTMLHelp.com and OneMansBlog.com.

I have no incentive whatsoever to advocate any product I don’t believe in. In fact I donate any and all proceeds from my personal blog to charity. (There are none to speak of anyway.)

As far as the invitation to hack your personal Web site is concerned, no thank you.

Hacking is illegal. I don’t do it. And I certainly wouldn’t do it at the invitation of a teen-ager running a “fake” server on a home computer using DynDNS on a connection coming from a local utility.

John

Hogan,

I think you are a bit aggressive in you approach but I agree with you. I’m a roboform user for >2 years ant I use KeePass for other stuff. But I hate promoting stuff that way. If you have very basic or no computer knowledge you gone down the advertising hole! RoboForm is good but we really need to see competition from fee open source stuff.

Thanks for the video tutorial.

[...] EDIT: By request I’ve created a short RoboForm Demonstration video. It ain’t great, but I guess it’s better than nothing. Hope it helps… [...]

This is not about RoboForm, but about posting screen grabs.

Most of the reason for the degradation of animated screen grabs is due to the nature of MPG (and JPG) compression. It’s due to the fact that the compression is based on DCT (discrete cosine transform) which assumes that you are taking a picture of something that occurs in nature, with short-term changes in HSV between pixels. That is, it will have curved edges and not have sharp, high-contrast edges. Most movies of people and places follow this rule.

But buildings, signs, text, and even more so, computer displays (by design!) have very sharp edges. These create compression artifacts, which show the well-known effect that looks like ripples coming away from the edge in question.

This is one of the reasons why PNG can be much better than JPG files for stills of man-made objects. This is why the Divx people continue to release new versions of their product.

Rule of thumb: for pictures of your kids, or trees, use JPG. For screen shots, use PNG (or even GIF). For movies of kids, or trees, or kids in trees, MPG will be fine. For animated screen grabs, we need to encourage YouTube and other sites to add a checkbox that says “this is a screengrab” or something. Otherwise, you will get the compression artifact every time.

Dave

nice work as a hacker myself (job) i can agree that it is much harder to hack but when hacked you have all the passwords, info, exc still nice job. ps why do you think they have made C and C++ but no C+. ty

And part of me (having just forgotten a password tonight…) goes “yeah fine and good, but what happens when you need to login to sites/accounts when you’re on another computer without roboform there to guide you…

(scream)

extraordinary work. great info.

I’ve used the software for over 2 years now.. but seeing your video makes me more understand the program. Thank you for making this video!

Oh and, roboform is really great software. I use it everyday. It stores almost hundred passwords of mine.

I’ve been using Password Agent for almost 3 years. The best thing is that I click on an entry inside Password agent and it will open a weblink and autofill my username and password automatically.
If someone wants to have a look:

http://www.moonsoftware.com

As someone else stated. Using one or more computers is a challenge it looks like and what about backing up the info in roboform. How is that accomplished? If I put all that important info in there, I want to be sure I can get it back if I have a failure of some sort.

I disagree with the blind faith in storing important passwords and info (encrypted) on a hard disk. Fairly recently I have a motherboard melt on me and also a complete hard disk failure.

I had to resort to going back to my trusty old notebook (paper variety!) for all the passwords lost. Obviously you don’t write down the password properly (shift letters one up and numbers one down algorithm). Stick to that and you should be OK. I advocate keeping very important information in more than one place.

@icersc0t Have you tried RoboForm Online: http://online.roboform.com ? This is a free optional service which allows RoboForm users to save their data to the cloud.