Monday 12 February 2007

PassPack - Relieve those password worries

Ok, so I just started using PassPack to keep track of my online passwords. Like most people I guess, I have a lot of online accounts, and I tend to (stupidly) use the same passwords for most accounts. Even then, I still often have to go through each password before I get the right one. It's even worse if the account is linked to an email address, as I still often use my old hotmail account to sign up for stuff I'm not 100% about, so I can go through 6 permutations before I get the right one for services I don't use often.

Now, most of my stuff isn't particularly confidential. I use internet banking, but I don't need help remembering the password for that, so I'm not too concerned using an online service for storing my emails. If someone really wants to hack my MySpace page, good luck to them! So when I read about PassPack, I thought I'd give it a try, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with it.

You give absolutely zero personal info, just choose a username, a password and a packing key and you're away. Okay, I can hear people complaining that this is another three things to remember, but once you can remember these three things, that's all you'll ever have to remember again! Plus, because PassPack doesn't hold anything remotely, you can access your passwords from any computer, a major downside to most password managers. This does mean that you need to log into passpack everytime you want to use it, and it has a very quick timeout, which means that you need to put in your packing key each time you use it, but I have found this to be a minor inconvenience.

PassPack is still in beta (v.3!), but it already looks good enough to me. The site is clean, easy to use, and very intuitive. There is some nice use of Ajax, without being over the top, and the general feeling of the site is extremely professional. If you're looking for somewhere to keep track of all those accounts, I'd definitely recommend PassPack.

1 comment:

Marco Barulli said...

Hi Tim,
take a look at Clipperz, is an online password manager that can do much more than simply storing your passwords.
- ubiquitous access
- direct login to online services
- offline version
- bookmarklet for quick data entering
- ....

Any comment, criticism or suggestion is welcome, no matter if privately or publicly. Thanks!

Marco
Clipperz co-founder