What to look for when evaluating password manager software

Network World - Here are the significant issues that can distinguish one password manager product from another. You'll probably make a similar list of requirements as you do your own research for password managers.

n Where is your password vault and how is it synchronized across platforms?Every product makes use of a "password vault" where it stores encrypted of course a record of all your passwords. This vault is located in different places depending on the particular product.

Some of the tools offer built-in synchronization with their own cloud service: once you create a user login to this service, any passwords that you have stored in your vault are synchronized automatically across all the PCs and mobile devices for a particular user. Others need additional software.

Best tools for protecting passwords

1Password works with an external service such as Dropbox or Apple's iCloudA to synchronize your password vault. A RoboForm has its Everywhere software for handling synchronization.

n What platforms are supported? A

How the vault is deployed means that each product offers different client support for using it. LastPass has the widest desktop and mobile platform support of any of the products we tested and included support for BlackBerry and Linux along with Windows 8 and Macs.

While all products support the original Windows 8, not all of these products yet support Windows 8.1 under Internet Explorer v11 or with certain 64-bit OSs. Also note that some of the products, such as 1Password, require a very recent iOS version (in its case, v6 or later), while others are more inclusive.

n What else can you store in your vault?

Some products (such as RoboForm and LastPass) can store other things besides passwords in their vaults, such as notes and files and keep everything encrypted and safe. Think of them as a poor substitute for whole disk encryption, but at least this offers some protection for the contents therein. 1Password has the largest collection of items that it can store in its vault.

n What browser versions are supported?

All of the products except Lieberman offer browser-plug-ins that can automatically record and supply your passwords for particular websites. Some support older and odder browser versions, some are less flexible.

n Can you save passwords for local server logins as well as Active Directory credentials too?

Lieberman is the only product here and is designed to operate across all your local network server logins, with a long list of supported systems. The others are geared towards capturing Web server logins.

n Can they work with accounts that have two-factor authentication?

Some of the products, such as LastPass and Lieberman, offer this additional protection.

n Can they protect you from your own mistakes?

Some of the products have nice features that can secure your passwords further, such as automatically closing their vault after a certain amount of idle PC time, turning off auto-fill options on your browser, or warning you of other dangerous practices.

n Can an enterprise centrally manage the tool?

Three of the products come with various management tools.

Read more about wide area network in Network World's Wide Area Network section.

Reprinted with permission from NetworkWorld.com. Story copyright 2012 Network World, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Review: Helium Music Manager 9 jazzes up music management

You don't have to be a hard-core audiophile to appreciate Helium Music Manager, but music fans with will get the most out of this application. This music organizer and player that helps you stay on top of extensive collections of files. It features an attractive design, but sometimes it's just a bit harder to use than it should be.

Helium Music Manager features a wizard that makes it easy to add music files.

I like how easy Helium Music Manager makes getting started: Launch the application, and it displays a wizard that lets you select which files you'd like to add to its music library. The process is quick, though adding thousands of files obviously takes a bit of time.

Once your files are available through Helium, you can see its organizational features at work. Chief among them is Helium's tag editor, which lets you work with individual files or batches, to speed things along. Casual users may be overwhelmed with how many options there are for tagging audio files, but music aficionados will appreciate the choices.

The application lets you monitor its progress as it adds music files. Unfortunately, many of Helium's other management features are not available in the free version. You have to upgrade to either the $29 Premium or $49 Network (up to 5 users) versions to take advantage of the features that allow you to analyze and repair MP3 and FLAC files, and locate and manage duplicate files. Rival MediaMonkey offers this kind of de-duping feature in its free version.

Helium makes syncing with mobile devices more complicated than it should be. Helium proved more difficult to sync with mobile devices than MediaMonkey. That application synced easily with both an iPhone and an Android phone. Helium, meanwhile, made the process disappointingly cumbersome, requiring that I choose a folder on the phone into which I'd like to transfer the music—and it didn't let me specify exactly which music to tranfer. A more automated, streamlined syncing process would go a long way toward increasing Helium's appeal.

Helium Music Manager Premium does offer additional features that make it worth the upgrade for heavy users, including the Music Browser, which allows you to browse through your music collection in different ways. It displays lists of recently played files, top artists of the week, and tag clouds that let you see visual representations of artists and genres. It's a neat way to find new music that might otherwise be buried in your collection.

Helium's design is attractive and modern. I like Helium Music Manager 9's design. Its slick black and fuschia look is appealing and modern. But I do wish the application itself were easier to use and that more of its features were available in the free version.

Liane Cassavoy is a veteran technology and business journalist. She contributes regularly to PCWorld and has written about business issues and products for Entrepreneur Magazine and other publications. She is the author of two business start-up guides published by Entrepreneur Press.
More by Liane Cassavoy

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Tech Tip: Getting a password manager

Remembering all the passwords and logins you need can be a demanding task. Fortunately, there are password managers that take care of it all for you, leaving you just to remember a single master password for everything.

In this video, we’ll look at password managers—I selected LastPass based on this PCWorld review—and show you how they can take the guesswork out of remembering your login information.

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