CNET Editors' note: The Download Now link will prompt a local download of the Firefox extension. To install the extension directly, open the file using your Firefox browser.
CNET Editors' review
The publisher's promise that once you "get" this free password manager for Firefox, you won't be able to live without it. After trying it out, we're not so sure. The add-on is installed as easily as all Firefox extensions, and is then easily accessed from your context menu, Tools menu, or toolbar icon.
The program is designed to generate secure passwords and enter them with two clicks. The reality is more complex for every secure account you already have set up. You're forced to change the password to one that PasswordMaker generates or use the program's plain, multitabbed Advanced Options window to set up different accounts.
Unlike many other password managers, including Firefox's, the program doesn't appear when you log in to inquire if you want to save it the information. Testers with numerous accounts complained account set-up time was too great. PasswordMaker did quickly fill in the password for accounts it handled, but the process wasn't easier or faster than with similar tools.
Users who download this application should note the online Wikipedia-style user guide primarily applies to later versions than stored here. In the end, we just weren't persuaded that PasswordMaker was an add-on we couldn't live without, or one that could surpass Firefox's default password tools.
Publisher's Description
From LeahScape:
One password to rule them all. If you're like most people, you have a few passwords that you use over and over again on many different Web sites. You know this isn't secure, but you do it anyway. Because it's difficult to remember a unique password for each and every Web site that requires one. PasswordMaker manages all your online accounts using either new, uncrackable passwords it creates, or your existing passwords. It even automatically populates Web forms for one-click login. Moreover, passwords aren't stored anywhere--they are calculated over and over again as they're needed--so there's nothing to be lost, hacked, or stolen.
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"Incredibly secure, easy to use"
Version: PasswordMaker 1.7.8
Pros
PasswordMaker allows you to generate exceptionally secure passwords based on various parameters you select individually. All you have to remember is your 'master password', which can be anything, including an entire sentence.
Cons
The system takes a little getting used to, since it is not a 'password manager', but a password generator.
Summary
The principle is simple: based on your selection of parameters, including your pass-phrase, this application generates unique passwords for every website you use. All you have to remember is your 'master password'. Whenever a site you use requires a password, you open the application (in Firefox, you open it from a small icon at the bottom right-hand corner), it recognizes the site you are on, and pre-populates the corresponding field. You then enter your 'master password', the application generates your password, you copy and paste it into the password field, and you are done.
What many reviewers apparently fail to recognize is that this is NOT a password 'manager'. NOTHING is stored anywhere. Not your master password, not the passwords in question. Even if your computer gets stoleno, there is no way anybody can find your passwords on the computer. More improtantly, because the system is based on the same principle used for public-key encryption (remember PGP?), even if somebody finds one of your passwords generated by this system (because you wrote it down), it cannot be used to 'guess' your master password. The encryption system is a one-way street (at least until we have quantum computers...).
Again, if you are looking for a system to store and manage your passwords, this is not for you. If you are happy with your self-designed passwords based on whatever private system you may have come up with, then you don't need this. If you want a password system that is based on sound cryptographical principles, and if you don't mind changing all your current passwords (which might be a good idea, since you have likely used the same passwords for a while), this is for you.
If you prefer storing all your passwords on your hard-drive, or on some 'password management' online storage, this is not for you. If you feel that trusting your financial safety and identity to the 'clouds' is unwise, this is the system you have been looking for.
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