passpack.com try out
I’ve been trying to find a way to manage my huge number of website passwords and perhaps store my private data. I came across passpack.com a few days ago and thought I’d give it a try.
After attempting to import my Firefox password list only to told that I had exceeded my allocated number of of entries by -97 (yes, minus 97). Hmmm! a few emails back and forth to the (very helpful) Passpack support team, plus the dicovery that I have third party cookies turned off on Firefox (forgot that) and I got it up and running.
So do I like it? Well it’s exactly what I wanted, but not actually what I need. You see it forces me to be a bit too secure. In order to login to a website without remembering the password, I have to:
- login to Passpack – no problem it supports openID (and I can have ‘remember me’ turned on my computers)
- perform the humanity test (a nice one actually – just click the black square)
- provide my packing key – which must be a fairly long and safe key. This is slightly annoying as I am an incredibly bad typer and have trouble typing more than 2 keys in the right order at the best of times. So trying to get a 20 character packing key right when I can’t see what I’ve typed takes numerous tries.
- locate the appropriate entry for the site I wish to visit.
- click the link to be forwarded to the site
- click the ‘Passpack it!’ bookmarklet (if I have the bookmark tool bat turned on – I don’t normally)
- and there, Robert’s your mother’s live-in-lover.
Now I know that this would probably be a lot easier if the domains in my password file (not sure why the don’t), but it’s all such a bloody palaver. Compare that to the Foxmarks experience:
- I go to the site I want to use
- Firefox prefills my details
Okay so there is a downside.
- I can’t store any data, just passwords
- I can’t use other browsers
- I can’t use a public access (or a friends) computer
Well, I’m thinking that I’ll stick a copy of Firefox passwords on my Truecrypt encrypted USB key to cover most of those issues. Sorry Passpack – but you’re just too secure for me!
Now if only Foxmarks would support openID, I’d be have just one password to remember. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about my accessing on my iPhone though! Any ideas?
We’de appreciate it if you could give LastPass.com a try.
We hope that you would find it much easier to use, and we believe it hopefully addresses all of the “downsides” you list above.
It’s a free, cross platform, cross browser solution that’s integrated directly into your browser. We’re in public beta right now, but have tens of thousands of active users…most of whom love it.
https://lastpss.com/
Thanks,
LastPass.com
Thanks for the great review Saul. Glad you like Passpack! We don’t like to force people to do anything but, being too secure is always a good thing : )
Louise (Passpack)
Passpack is good but now me and most of my friends converted to MashedLife.com
Mainly because of its open-source approach:
http://mashedlife.com/tools.php
Tons of available tools that allows me true freedom to export from my browser passwd mgr, use from my iPhone, from my Facebook, etc.
And there sharing capability really helps my life a whole lot – I can share accounts with friends, co-workers without telling my passwords to any.
By giving it a look, you will love it since it is aimed for a better life, not a security junkie.