Saturday, June 2, 2012

mSecure: Finally a password manager for Android (and iOS) with multi-PC (Mac and Windows) synch

Finally I have found and am using a decent and affordable password manager for Android. It successfully synchs across multiple PCs (2 in my case: work desktop and work notebook) and at least one Android device. The first version I purchased early 2012 had some issues which would cause the Android app to crash near the end of the synch process. The synch actually had occurred (new and updated items were transferred) but the Android app crashed near the "validating database" part of the synch. mSecure support responded within 24 hours (how common is that these days?) and after some initial frustration on my part trying to validate that yes, this really is a repeatable failure, they released a  new Android version which seems to have solved the problem.

Check it out at https://msevensoftware.com/ where you will find iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows versions (3.1.0). Synch is via (secure) WiFi and I am successfully using Android 2.3.4 (mSecure 3.1.4) and Windows 7 pro 64-bit on two PCs.

Entries are called Items and there is usually a note field where you can enter freeform text.  Groups are the higher-level categories such as BusinessWebsite Logins, and PersonalTypes are the lower-level categories such as Bank AccountsCredit Cards and Web Logins.  Yes: website login entries which are not strictly Business or Personal will be Group "Website Logins" and Type "Web Login".

You can easily edit existing Groups and Types. You can also add new Groups and Types.Oddly missing is a "Password" type, so I added that.

On Android, the database is stored on SD card, so you have a way to easily move to another device. I recently had to do that when my phone flaked out and got replaced.

Yes there are other password managers out there. I was using secForms but they failed to work on Android 2.3.4 and now seem to be out of business. Others don't claim to support multi-PC synch or lacked a decent desktop PC version altogether. KeePassDroid had issues with customization and a UI which I found awkward. Why did it take this long to get back to what I had with TopSecret on Windows and Palm OS devices 10+ years ago? I think they call that progress.




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