Manage Passwords, Login IDs, Autofill With A Click.

I have a major complaint about computer and internet use. Too many passwords, too many login IDs, too many forms to fill in.

Safari’s autofill and OS X’s keychain help, but not enough. Here’s my solution to end the password storage problem, add more security, fill in forms faster.

Certainly I’m not the only Mac user who voices this complaint. Too many passwords. Too many login IDs. It takes forever to fill in forms.

Worse, if you’re like me, you have multiple Macs, and multiple browsers to use each day, and login to various web sites, fill in forms, and more.

If you’re like me, you’ve gone from keeping passwords and login IDs on Stickies, to Word documents, to Excel spreadsheets, to finally organizing the Keychain, only to get more frustrated by the shortcomings of each.

You may have tried a password utility or two or three. The problem with each of those is autofill, and getting passwords to work in each of the different Mac browsers.

We live in this interesting age where security has become ultra important, passwords and login IDs are required for everything online, and the need to organize a complex digital life is no longer a desire, it’s a necessity.

Enter 1Passwd. If you don’t have many passwords or login IDs to keep track off, Stickies will be just fine for you and it’s free. Not very secure, but hard to beat the price and convenience.

However, if you have this growing list of passwords and login IDs and you’re worried about security but need convenience, then try seven days of 1Passwd, one of the most used applications on my Macs.

1Passwd manages passwords and login IDs and more. So do Stickies. But not like this. 1Passwd can handle hundreds of passwords using a single login key. 1Passwd is mobile and goes where you go, via .Mac or Palm or Treo, or USB flash drive.

1Passwd integrates with Safari via a simple plugin which is automatically installed.

Ditto for OmniWeb, Firefox, Camino, Flock, and the popular DEVONagent.

Safari does a nice job of autofill but is limited to a single identity and basic address, city, state, phone number, and email address.

Again, my life is a little more complicated and needs a solution beyond Safari.

1Passwd creates multiple identities, all stored via the same key password, and lets you select which you want to use during a web page autofill. Even better, 1Passwd may be the best autofill agent on the Mac, ever. You train it to remember forms which are complex, or require more information.

When you come to a web site which requires extensive autofill, click the 1Passwd icon in the browser bar, and everything gets filled in.

1Passwd also acts as a secure launcher. It will list all your web sites in columns which can be sorted by web site domain, by name, and so on. Click the domain name of the site you want to log in to, and 1Passwd opens the browser page, fills in the forms, and logs in.

One simple double-click gets you right in the site you need, and even handles multiple forms per single domain, giving you a choice as to which login to use.

That little piece of extra security brings peace of mind. Unscrupulous thieves could put a keystroke logger on your Mac to capture your login IDs and passwords as you type. 1Password never uses the keyboard.

OK, so you have a growing password and login ID problem, but switching to something else to manage them is painful, right? After all, Safari captures and stores plenty of info in the Mac’s Keychain.

1Passwd will import what you need from Safari, Camino, Firefox, etc. That saves you time and effort.

If I were required to name a single application that has changed my daily habits more in the past year, it’s 1Passwd. Complaints? Autofill of forms isn’t perfect, but it wasn’t (and can’t be) with Safari, either.

If you’ve ever tried digging through the Mac’s Keychain to organize passwords and login IDs, you know a better solution must be available. It is. 1Passwd.

How do you manage your passwords and login IDs? How many do you have on your Mac? Which browser manages them best? Share your perspective in the Comments section below.

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