Posts Tagged
encryption
Think fast, how many web app accounts do you have? Now, how many software licenses? What about bank accounts or email addresses? I’d wager at least several dozen. That’s a lot of user names, passwords and numbers to remember. To help Mac users keep track of their myriad digital profiles, a number of apps have been developed to store and organize all your personal and private information.
I’ve been an avid 1Password user for almost a year now, and I’d be useless without it. However, at $40, it’s not the most affordable option available, and major competitor Wallet is still a bit steep at $20. MyWallet is a newer app offering the basic functionality of a password manager at the much more palatable price of $2.99. Read on to find out if you can still enjoy the benefits of password management without shelling out the cash.
Let’s face it, passwords are a hassle. Everyone advises against using the same ones over and over again, but it’s just so very convenient only having to memorize a couple of them. Recently, a lot of apps have come out that promise to get rid of this problem by helping you remember all of your passwords, but most of them aren’t very convenient to use.
The app that we are reviewing today, Concealer, isn’t very different from the competition, but it does add a few unique features. Check them out after the jump!
My work requires me to keep confidential notes. I hunted around for some time to find the best way of doing this on my Mac, and tried several different options. What I used for a long time was password-protected entries in either Yojimbo, VoodooPad or Together. Unfortunately, in each case I felt something was missing.
I also tried Espionage. What I liked about this solution was the simplicity of making my notes in plain text files and dropping them into folders, which were then securely encrypted as a whole. I found, though, that I was prompted far too often to supply passwords to unlock the archives it creates so that online backups or other apps could interact with them. What I discovered instead was another app that did a similar job but required far less interaction: Knox.
Knox was already a well-established app when, back in May, it was acquired by Agile Web Solutions, the folks who brought us the excellent (and I would say essential) 1Password. After the jump we’ll walk through Knox’s main features so you can see if it matches your way of working.
Security is always a paramount concern when storing a decent amount of information on your computer. Fortunately, OS X is a reasonably secure operating system by default – user data is kept separate, it’s easy to password protect your account, and you can encrypt your whole drive with FileVault if desired. Unfortunately, there’s no simple way to encrypt a particular file, folder or application. This is where Espionage comes in, providing a simple method to password protect and encrypt only the data you want to.
The latest release has brought a number of improvements to the user experience, and integration with other areas of OS X. If you’re interested in securing particular pieces of information on your Mac, read on to learn about how Espionage can help.
