* RoboForm helps you manage your online identity
When the Web was young (and for that matter, as were we), it was easy to keep track of your logon information for Web sites. But as the years have rolled by you have most likely discovered hundreds of Web sites where you want to establish an account and the volume of your logon information has become nearly impossible to manage.
Here’s the solution: RoboForm (see editorial links below) from Siber Systems.
RoboForm is a browser helper object (BHO) as well as a toolbar and browser extension. It monitors Web pages looking for forms and when you complete a new form, it offers to memorize the fields in a “passcard.” When you select the passcard from the RoboForm toolbar or return to the form’s page, RoboForm pops up a dialog offering to fill in the form for you and optionally submit it.
RoboForm can be optionally configured to require that you log on to access your passcards, which can be encrypted using DES or Triple-DES algorithms. This provide a high degree of security for your logon data and RoboForm can also be configured to automatically log you out when a set time period expires, when your screen saver activates, and or when your PC goes into standby mode.
RoboForm can save user data as “identities” so that you can re-use form data across multiple sites and there’s even support for multiple users. There’s also a password generator that creates robust passwords which means that rather than always recycling the same old passwords for more or less every site you register with (an almost inescapable bad habit most of us have) you can be professional about managing your online identities.
RoboForm also includes “SafeNotes,” which allow free form text to be saved in the RoboForm system with optional encryption.
The product runs as an add-on to IE-based browsers and also works with Netscape, Mozilla, and Firefox under Windows. There’s support for USB drives so your logon data can be portable and you can sync your RoboForm data with Palm or Pocket PC devices.
I find it amusing that Siber Systems pitches RoboForm as a replacement for the dreadful Claria a.k.a. Gator spyware product … then again I suspect there must be a lot of people who installed those products and have never realized how compromised their PCs became. Ho-hum.
Anyway, there’s a lot more to RoboForm’s features that you can try out for free with a limit of 10 passcards or, with an older release version (5.7.6), 30 passcards. The full version, RoboForm Pro, has no limitations and is terrific value at $30. I couldn’t work without it any more!
