Nerve Endings Firing Away

Users proclaim 1Password as one of the best Mac utilities ever made, and that joy has rightfully spread to the iPhone/iPod touch and more recently, the iPad, Windows and even Android. The desktop version just got a major new update with a long list of great new features, capped by using Dropbox to sync between the different versions.

[Source: Mac|Life] I swear by 1Password. I no longer have the same password for most of my online accounts or email. Each one is a randomly-generated strong password comprised of alphanumeric characters interspersed with upper and lower cases letters. Heck, even I don’t remember any of my passwords any more. 1Password has extensions for all known browsers including Firefox, Chrome, and Safari and logging in to your accounts with saved passwords can be done with a single click.

The apps for the iPhone and iPad synced your passwords from the desktops to your phone so in case you wanted to login to your accounts on a third-party or public computer (not recommended for obvious security reasons). The apps on your phone let you directly login to your account just like on your desktop. The only point of inconvenience was remembering to manually sync your phone and desktop each time you added or modified any login details. 1Password just made it a lot easier by letting you store your encrypted password database on Dropbox (surely, you have heard of this tool). Now syncing is done on the fly and your login details are always up-to-date. Obviously, you need to use a similarly strong password for your Dropbox and protect your phone with a keypad lock (set to delete all data after a fixed number of tries).

The app for the desktop and your other devices like the iPhone or the iPad are relatively expensive at $39.99 and $14.99 but for the protection of your online data that often includes your financial information, it is a small price to pay. Obviously the convenience factor rates high in my opinion whether it is setting up Dropbox to store your 1Password database or sync with other devices.