There are free password managers and ones that you pay for. Some of them have extra features you'll find useful. Regardless of the features and regardless of which one you choose, the important point is to choose something.
Web browsers can remember your login name and password for sites that you visit often, but storing passwords in a browser is considered a security risk. The browsers are getting better, but I still prefer to use a separate password manager because it will work with all browsers. I use at least 2 browsers every day and sometimes 4. Storing passwords in all of them and keeping the passwords updated sounds like more work than I want to do.
For the past several years, I've used the paid version of LastPass. Before that, I used the free version for a while. Even earlier I used KeePass and, in ancient history, PINS. There's no shortage of these applications.
One of the more interesting applications I've seen recently is Password Safe. It stores login data in a password-protected, encrypted file that you unlock when you need access to the stored information. Password Safe has an Auto Type feature that will log you in to sites and applications automatically. A default Auto Type action exists, but this can be customized for every application or site that you use. Some sites, particularly bank sites, use non-standard login procedures that cause automatic logins to fail.
Password Safe is somewhat more difficult than most to use, though, in part because the documentation appears to have been written by the person who wrote the program. That's never a good idea because the developer makes too many assumptions about what a user will know. As a result, it took several tries and more than an hour for me to import 400 passwords into Password Safe.
The primary shortcoming, though, is the fact that there's no option to store passwords on-line. There is a thumb-drive option, meaning that you must always have the thumb drive with you. And, of course, you could store the file on Google Drive or One Drive.
The customization possible with Password Safe is impressive though, and this might be the right application for more geeky readers. You can download it from SourceForge and, as of this writing, no additional applications are included.
Every website you visit that requires a password should have a unique password. I have to admit that I don't live up to my own admonition. I use the same password on several sites that I consider trivial -- ones that contain no financial information, for example. But my passwords are both unique and complex for non-trivial sites such as banks, website management, corporate e-mail, client data, and the like.
If you're looking for a free password manager, LastPass is my recommendation for most people. It has a remarkable number of features for a free application. The paid version (more about that in a bit) adds a few useful features for just $1 per month.
During the installation process, LastPass will offer to import all of the passwords you have stored in your browser. The fact that LastPass can do this is a pretty good indicator of the (lack of) password security in browsers. You will also be asked if you want to turn off password storage in the browser. The right answer is Yes.
KeePass is another good free password manager, but it has the same shortcoming that I mentioned with PasswordSafe: There's no on-line storage. If you use only a single computer, don't have a smart phone, and never need access to password protected sites from public computers, KeePass is a good choice.
LastPass is still my recommendation. For $12 per year, LastPass Premium provides the ability to sync across device types and includes multi-factor authentication, if you want to use it.
If you use secure applications that require a password to log in, LastPass Premium can help LastPass for Applications, a separate utility available to Premium users, brings automated password management to applications, too.
A completing application, Dashlane ($40/year) adds a feature that LastPass doesn't have. It can give an emergency contact access to your passwords. We're all going to die and relatives might like to have access to your "digital legacy" when you're gone. The Emergency Contact feature lets you list any number of emergency contacts and give them access to some or all your accounts.
You can create the same effect in an application such as LastPass by providing your user name and password to those who will need it when you shuffle off this mortal coil. And doing it that way costs nothing.
LastPass also has a Shared Family Folder. Premium users can create a folder that will be shared with 1 to 5 other LastPass users. The creator needs to have a premium subscription, but the others can all be free users. Drag any account into the shared folder and it will be shared with the group.
Changes are afoot at LastPass. LastPass founder Joe Siegrist announced that the company has been acquired by LogMeIn. "As one of the world’s leading SaaS companies," Siegrist wrote, "we can’t imagine a better team to align with our values and product-driven mission. With their experience in growing successful brands like join.me, we’re excited to join LogMeIn in delivering the next generation of identity and access management for individuals, teams and companies, with LastPass at the forefront."
On 9 Oct 2015, I asked the LastPass PR team to talk with me about the future. The image at the right exemplifies the response.
Yeah ... not much.
Given LogMeIn's history, I'm concerned about the future for LastPass. LogMeIn once offered a free service that allowed people who occasionally needed to connect to someone else's computer to provide assistance to do so for free. With no warning at all, the free service was withdrawn. Will that happen with LastPass? I use the paid version of LastPass, but the free version is undoubtedly used by a large number of people. Will they suddenly be forced to upgrade? The paid version of LastPass is inexpensive, just $1 per month, but will LogMeIn set prices so high (as they did with their own service) that casual users won't be able to justify paying for it?
I hope not.
No matter how sophisticated applications such as Muse, Dreamweaver, or Xara Designer Pro get, there always seems to be a market for applications that allow users to manually code pages. Some people are just more comfortable writing code than using WYSIWYG tools. If you're one of those people, you may want to take a look at Brackets, a free open-source code editor for the Web.
If you visit the brackets.io website, you'll see that you can download the application with Extract (Preview) by Adobe. That's probably what you'll want to do, but you can download Brackets without Extract if you want to. The default (big blue button) includes Extract; to exclude Extract, choose one of the text links.
What you'll find when you run the application is a code editor that is closely linked to the Chrome browser. Here's a short (4 minute) video that explains what Brackets is and shows how it's linked to a browser. This might be the best of all possible options because users can modify their code and then immediately see the effects of their changes in the browser.
During the installation process, if you selected the Adobe Preview option, you'll need to agree to the terms of the license. There is no cost for the Adobe component.
The live preview function provides a real-time view of changes as you make them. Currently the preview linking works only with Chrome, not the open source Chromium or any other browser. Opening developer tools in Chrome will close the live development connection and all files must be inside a single Brackets folder. Only one HTML file can be previewed at a time and real-time updates are paused when syntactically invalid HTML is encountered. Brackets will resume pushing changes to the browser when the syntax is corrected.
In addition, Brackets doesn't offer library items or templates that Dreamweaver uses to maintain consistency across a website. There are ways to achieve functions such as this in a code editor, but they're somewhat more complex than selecting library items and templates from a menu.
Even given the shortcomings, Brackets is a project that's worth keeping an eye on. Brackets was created by Adobe Systems, licensed under the MIT License, and is currently maintained on GitHub. It's a cross-platform application that runs on OSX, Windows, and Linux. If you're interested, you can download it from the Brackets website.
If you recently upgraded a computer to Windows 10, you may see notifications occasionally that offer 50% off for Office 2016 and Office 365. If you select the offer, you'll find that you can sign up for a year's worth of Office 365 for about $35. That's for one computer. If you have several computers, as I do, you might want to consider one of the standard offerings.
Office 365 Home costs $100 per year. Yes, that's considerably more than $35, but it also allows you to install the applications on 5 computers. The computers can be Windows machines, Macs, Android tablets, or Ipads. You can also install the applications on 5 smart phones. Office 2016 is compatible with Windows 7, 8, and 10. Mac users need OSX 10.10 or later.
The package includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, Publisher, 1TB of space on OneDrive, and 60 minutes per month for Skype calls. If you use Visio or Project, you'll need to license those applications separately or continue to use older versions. Unlike the preview version of Office 2016, the commercial version doesn't require that you uninstall previous versions of Office.
There's also no 25-character key. You'll install the applications by visiting the Microsoft Store website and from there the process is virtually automatic. In coming weeks, I'll take a look at the new Office 2016 applications and let you know what I think of them.
Dell and it's private equity firm, Silver Lake, plan to acquire EMC for $67 billion, which makes it the largest tech acquisition in history. At $33.15 a share, the price is considerably above the expected price of $27.
In May, Avago paid $37 billion to acquire Broadcom and that was the largest private tech deal at the time. It now looks small compared to this acquisition. You may think that Dell has grown a lot since it went private a couple of years ago, but it hasn't. EMC is about twice as large as Dell. The mouse has eaten the cat.
EMC owns VMware. Although it was included in the deal, it will continue to be traded separately. EMC itself will go private. The combination makes Dell and EMC the largest privately controlled technology company in the world.
EMC Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger says that VMware's mission and strategy remain unchanged. He says the leadership team will remain in place.
As expected, Michael Dell will be in charge of the new organization and EMC CEO Joe Tucci will retire. Tucci had hoped to retire earlier, but had been unable to find a suitable successor.
In an earlier report, I cautiously recommended Bitdefender. As a result of additional use, I have retracted that recommendation. Shortly after completing the review, I began to notice significant problems with the application. The company's inability to fix the problems and unwillingness to honor their 30-day money-back guarantee were disappointing.
Here's a quick summary of my experience. The green areas indicate message from Bitdefender. The blue areas indicate messages from me. One of the primary problems I encountered was the extremely slow loading of websites, but there were other issues.
13 Sep: I had reported problems to Bitdefender. The recommendation involved reinstalling the application: Hi Bill, Thank you for your e-mail. In order to solve this situation, please reinstall Bitdefender Total Security 2015 on your Windows 10 computer. In order to correctly do that, please follow the links and use the installation kits from our installation article.
17 Sep: I had reported additional problems and Bitdefender responded: Dear Bill, The situation appears due to a timeout with the Bitdefender cloud servers. The connection to our servers is either blocked by your ISP or is due to a misconfiguration of the router (if any). To be able to provide you with further details on this matter we need information about your internet connection. Please access the link below and run this tool on your PC.
19 Sep: I completed the tests, examined the results, and saw no indication of a problem. After sending the result files to Bitdefender, I waited for a reply and I'm still waiting.
20 Sep: Dear Bill Blinn, Please be informed that we are currently working on resolving your Customer Care request, ticket no: 2015090822130003, and will be getting back to you shortly. Thank you for your patience. (Automatic message.)
27 Sep (on day 29 of the 30-day guarantee period): I have attempted to open a new ticket on your website for the refund. Following successful completion of the CAPTCHA, the form does not submit and provides no error message. The application does not meet my needs. I have removed it from the desktop computer and the notebook computer. Please issue a refund under the terms of your 30-day guarantee. Order information follows.
28 Sep: Hello Bill, I'm sorry to hear that the product does not suit your needs. If you wish, we can assist you with any issues you have encountered in order to find a solution. We will also offer you an extension to compensate for any inconvenience.
28 Sep: I explained that extending the term for a product that didn't suit my needs was unacceptable and asked again about the refund.
1 Oct: Dear Bill Blinn, Please be informed that we are currently working on resolving your Customer Care request, ticket no: 2015090822130003, and will be getting back to you shortly. Thank you for your patience. (Automatic message.
2 Oct (from me, in response to the automated message): Please be advised that I have filed a complaint with American Express: (details provided).
Two weeks after I requested a refund (and only after I had advised Bitdefender that I had filed a complaint with American Express) I finally received a response that asked me to withdraw the charge-back request with American Express.
12 Oct: Dear Bill, Thank you for your message. We kindly inform you that, due to the charge-back opened, the product has been invalidated until the two parties shall agree to a final resolution. Until the process ends we cannot access your order or refund it.
Please note that in order to close the status of the dispute we need the confirmation of your bank that the investigation started has been closed. Please contact them and ask for a letter of confirmation and forward it as reply to this message in order to urgent the process. We kindly inform you that a charge-back is a dispute where the customer bank contests the charge of a company upon the client's credit card and starts the investigation of his legitimacy. Only when the investigation of the bank finishes can we receive the amount paid by the customer or the funds are returned to the customer account, depending on the result of the investigation.
12 Oct: Unfortunately Bitdefender has largely lost my trust and confidence. I requested a refund 3 times and had no success and it took more than a week for you to respond after I filed the complaint with American Express. I will forward your message to American Express and ask them what they think I should do. This would have been so much easier for all of us if someone had simply taken care of the matter the first time.
I forwarded the message to American Express and they are currently reviewing it.
13 Oct: We have been informed by our on-line vendor regarding your charge-back request. Therefore any license keys associated to your order - will be invalidated and you will no longer be able to use the products related to the disputed order.
Because I had already uninstalled Bitdefender from both of the computers I had installed it on and reinstalled Avast (which now works properly with the Windows 10 production release and the preview version in the fast ring), I don't see this as problematic.
15 Oct: Dear Bill Blinn, Please be informed that we are currently working on resolving your Customer Care request, ticket no: 2015090822130003, and will be getting back to you shortly. Thank you for your patience. (Automatic message.)
So I'm waiting for American Express to sort though the paperwork and issue the refund. As for Bitdefender: I recommend avoiding the company. Their applications have excellent ratings from the major publishers and what they offer may well work perfectly for some users. If you run into a problem, though, there not much likelihood that Bitdefender will be able to help or willing to offer a refund.
