Lock Your Secrets In The New Secret Box On Your Mac
I have a few Mac utilities which manage what I will call secret Mac information. Secret as in login IDs, passwords, web site bookmarks, serial numbers, credit card information, software license and registration information, and more. Why two?
While they are handy, useful, and in use for years, one does what the others do not. One simply stores everything I want in a simple, elegant, secure database and not much more. Another one, 1Password, does something similar, but adds the feature of automatically logging in to.... (excerpted).
11 Reader Comments
Dave said:
I actually use Steel and 1Password.
Steel is lightning fast, easy-to-use and super customizable. Every time i make a new pass it goes right into Steel instantly, and I pull stuff out all the time. It doesn’t matter to me that development has ceased, it works awesome as ever.
I use 1Password for autofill and as a catch-all for when I skipped putting something in Steel. And the syncing is nice. If only 1Password had a Steel database import and if you could create your own categories like Steel does, I could probably live on 1Password alone. But will limited pre-defined category options it takes too much fishing around for what i do in steel in about 5 seconds flat.
So I’ve found they work great together, and probably will continue that way for a long time.
zal said:
I use a small utility called “i23”.
I’d like to know your opinion on this.
To enter data is a little confusing, you need to enter password twice. But this is what I use since I switched to mac in Jan.2008.
Welles said:
I’ve used PasswordMaster since 2002. It stopped development about 4 years ago but still works. Then I switched to Steel and laboriously built up a database only to have them quit development. I do use 1Password but my feeling is that it takes a bit of noodling to keep it going. I like the ‘just works’ concept. The result is that I’m very interested in Ron’s conclusions (are you concluded yet?) as I’m also in the position of finding a new password/info data base.
CJ said:
I use free and open source KeePassX (http://www.keepassx.org/). No mobile support (but I don’t have the need for that anyways) but it is compatible with KeePass version 1.0 that allows you to have 1 DB file and a Windows and Mac OS X client run off a USB Drive (which is what my primary need was). It has filled my needs so far. It may not be as fancy as others but I would certainly recommend it as a very good option! The windows version has plugins that do auto fill etc and I hope the Mac version will have that soon.
jonny_m said:
Data Guardian is pretty good and only $20. No iPhone version.
David Mac said:
I gave up on 1Password. Too many bugs. Every new Safari version or OS X version would break 1Password. The new version doesn’t even work in Safari without changing Safari to 32-bit. What’s with that? Not only is it $40, but the 3.0 version will cost more money with an upgrade fee, but with no new features other than 64-bit capability.
Cadence said:
I use Password Wallet. Only $20. Also has an iPhone version, plus a Palm and Windows Mobile version. Encryption is 448-bit BlowFish.
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A Stevens2 said:
I use mSecure for my iPhone mainly because it has several easy options to exchange secure data between the phone and computer. It also allowed me to enter lots of data at one time using the csv format.
For the mac and pc use I use the open source truecrypt and carry all my passwords on a thumb drive.