Switchers' Blog

Twitter founder recommends 1Password in wake of company's hack

The fine folks at Twitter suffered an unfortunate security breach this week when hundreds of the company's internal documents, spreadsheets, and other files were stolen and leaked to the Internet (note: this was business planning stuff, not usernames or passwords of folks like you and me). Information like employee interview schedules, building alarm codes, credit card numbers, business partner confidentiality agreements, employee dietary restrictions, and even a pitch for a Twitter TV show all fell victim to the attack.

If I may go off-topic for just a moment: Yes, folks are apparently working on some kind of Twitter show.

Twitter, of course, blogged about the incident and stated that employees have been reminded about the importance of following good personal security guidelines like choosing strong passwords. Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter, also mused that he was "alarmed how vulnerable most of us on the web are." Naturally, we couldn't agree more on the importance of these topics, because these kinds of security breaches can happen to anyone who isn't serious enough with their passwords. But we were also honored to see Evan recommend our own 1Password as a better way to manage passwords and protect one's online life.

In another tweet today, Evan offered some good password tips to his followers. Among them are good habits—like using strong passwords—and other habits that are good to break—like using the same password everywhere no matter how strong it is. Evan also said that a "practical way to do this: 1Password." And yet again, we find ourselves tongue-tied when it comes to disagreeing with statements from Twitter or its employees.

We thank @ev for his recommendation, and hope 1Password can help Twitter to manage its passwords and identities. It is, of course, great to see 1Password recommended by such a high-profile tech CEO. But at the end of the day, we genuinely hope that we can help prevent anyone from having to go through such an unfortunate breach of security.

Macworld tips its hat twice at 1Password

While speaking on the general topic of how—and why—to create stronger passwords, Macworld's Joe Kissell recommends 1Password as a way to better secure one's online life. More specifically, Kissell writes:

Agile Web Solutions’ outstanding $40 1Password utility includes a flexible password generator among its many features.

In case you haven't seen the particular tool that Kissell is referring to, it is the Strong Password Generator, available from either your browser's 1P toolbar button or the 1Password right-click contextual menu. It's a great, customizable tool that automatically generates extremely secure, customizable passwords for the sites you need to log into. You can opt to save these passwords as Logins in your Agile Keychain, and they are protected and encrypted with the same, single Master Password as the rest of your 1Password data.

In a second post about keeping your online life organized, Kissell again recommends 1Password as a "high-powered password manager." He also touts 1Password's ability to organize not just passwords, but other information like credit card numbers, FTP credentials, membership details, garage door codes, and much, much more. He even mentions our 1Password touch app for iPhone and iPod touch as a way to securely bring all your information on the go.

"Other utilities, whatever their virtues, are far less convenient and versatile."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves! Thanks to Joe Kissell and Macworld for such wonderful compliments!

1Password is ready for Firefox 3.5

By now you probably know that Mozilla has released Firefox 3.5 with a slew of new features and enhancements. But we're sure that Firefox-slinging 1Password users are all wondering the same question: is it safe to update yet?

Fortunately, the answer is yes! We tested 1Password with Firefox 3.5 through the beta period and didn't run into any issues. Just to be on the safe side, you should probably update 1Password to the latest 2.9.21 version that we released yesterday. That said, if you run into any issues, be sure to let us know in our 1Password support forum or here on the blog.

David Chartier
Chief Media Producer, Agile Web Solutions

1Password 2.9.21 is out

This is a minor release, but we did some good bug squashin this time around. You can use the 1Password > Check for Updates menu to grab the new version, and here's a rundown of what's new:

1. Replaced the .1report extension with plain old .html for Diagnostic Reports.
2. Updated the Switch to Agile Keychain window to make it clear what the password is for, added the ability to specify a reminder hint.
3. Updated Registration Required prompt.
4. Fixed rare 1Password freezing problem that could happen on launch.
5. Search no longer includes item UUIDs in the search criteria.
6. Fixed problem where the contents of the Sync Conflict Resolver Window was empty in some cases.
7. Fixed memory leak in Safari extension.
8. Fixed missing localization of several strings.

Enjoy.

Getting 1Password to work on Snow Leopard (Updated)

Maybe you're a developer helping Apple put some final spit and polish on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, the forthcoming major update that's due by September this year. Or maybe you're an ahem enthusiastic user who just has to peek at what Apple has behind the curtain. Either way, you are now frantically looking for a way to continue living in a pre-release Snow Leopard world without 1Password working with Safari.

That's right, while our developer ninjas typically slice through browser updates with startlingly silent speed, we tend to wait for Apple to publicly ship its major OS updates before springing into action. A lot can change during the beta period of an OS, and constantly keeping up with those changes can create a lot of busywork—work that takes us away from supporting our customers and making 1Password even more awesome.

However, as it turns out, 1Password 2.9.19 should work fairly well on Snow Leopard. Our plug-in for most browsers should also work, except for Safari. To get 1Password running in Safari on Snow Leopard, you can perform two simple steps from this post in our forums, courtesy of 1Password developer Chad Seldomridge. To quote:

1. Configure Safari to run in 32-bit mode (Use Get Info in Finder and enable the 32-bit mode under the General section).
2. Edit the 1Password.app/Contents/Resources/SupportedBrowsers.plist file and set the Safari.MaxBundleVersion value to 6532 (Update: value changed from 6531 to 6532 for latest Snow Leopard build 10A402a)

That should make 1Password happy in Safari on Snow Leopard, but remember: this is not an official statement of support. 1Password is still completely unsupported on Snow Leopard, so if you need help, swing on by the aforelinked thread to post feedback and ask questions.

David Chartier
Chief Media Producer, Agile Web Solutions

"Agile Turns Labor of Necessity Into Best Seller"

Agile Web Solutions' own Chief Evangelist, Carl Slawinski, was interviewed recently by TechNewsWorld. The article covers the original inspiration behind 1Password, and Carl comments on a number of issues ranging from misinformation about the Mac platform, the challenges of developing for the iPhone, and more!

Check out the full article at TechNewsWorld!

On 1Password 3 and free license upgrades

Later this year, Agile Web Solutions will release 1Password 3, our most delicious upgrade ever, featuring a gorgeously redesigned UI, custom Wallet Items, and much, much more. Brimming with anticipation, customers have been e-mailing, tweeting, and occasionally tackling us on the street (we love you guys too!) to find out how upgrades will work and who will be eligible for a free 1Password 3 license.

We sent a newsletter explaining the license upgrade terms to our customers a few months ago. Now that we're speaking a little more publicly about the new version, the matter bears repeating here on the blog.

In a nutshell: Anyone who has purchased a 1Password 2.x license after February 1, 2009 will get a free upgrade to 1Password 3.0. Yes, we realize that such a wide-open upgrade window could be grounds to have ourselves committed. But the bosses won't budge on this, and I need to keep my job so I'm going to stop bugging them to make it smaller. Proud new owners of recently purchased 1Password 2.x licenses are simply going to have to make due with a free upgrade to 1Password 3. Dem's the cards.

Keep in mind, however, that 1Password 2 supports Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard. When the new 1Password 3 hotness arrives, it will only run on 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard. In other words, we're dropping Tiger support in the new version.

As far as an upgrade price for pre-February customers, we haven't worked one out yet. As soon as we do, you'll certainly hear about it here and on Twitter.

If you want to stay on top of what's new and upcoming at Agile Web Solutions, be sure to bookmark this blog or subscribe to it in your favorite newsreader. You can also sign up for our newsletter at the top of the sidebar. Of course, we promise your address will not be used for selling you get-rich schemes or any such nonsense. Just pure, legitimate, Agile Web Solutions nonsense.

David Chartier
Chief Media Producer

1Password 2.9.19 brings support for Safari 4

Well that didn't take long: we released a beta on Monday afternoon to support Apple's officially shipping version of Safari 4. I step away to eat dinner, take the dogs to the park, and play some Left 4 Dead, and suddenly I see our developer ninjas have finished polishing 1Password 2.9.19.

The headlining feature of our new version (available via the built-in Check for Updates feature) is, of course, support for Safari 4 on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard (sorry, 10.6 Snow Leopard is still in the works). But that's not all: we managed to add better rules for matching domains like k12.sc.us, as well as drag-and-drop Dock icon support for importing .appshelf files.

For users of Camino nightly builds, we had to disable support to avoid some crashes. Sorry guys.

Lastly, a tip just in case the 1Password button disappears from Safari 4's toolbar after upgrading 1Password. We've heard a couple rare reports of this happening, but the fix is easy: quit Safari, then open 1Password and go to the Preferences > Browsers section. Uncheck Safari, then check it again. Restart Safari and the 1Password button should return.

David Chartier
Chief Media Producer

Apple <3s 1Password touch

It seems like it was barely a week ago that 1Password is both a "Most Popular" and "Featured Download" at Apple's own site. Oh wait, it was only a week ago!

But it looks like Apple is also a fan of 1Password touch for the iPhone and iPod touch! In Apple's new iPhone 3GS Guided Tour, you can see 1Password is installed on the demo phone at roughly the 1:50 mark. As a bonus: the advantageous use of the number 1 in our software's name means that we appear as the first user-installed application on Apple's iPhone 3GS.

Two nods from Apple for 1Password in about as many weeks! Be still our beating hearts.

David Chartier
Chief Media Producer

Safari 4 Support: Coming soon to a 1Password near you (Updated: now with more beta)

Update: 1Password 2.9.19 beta 3 is out with support for Safari 4. You can use Check for Updates to grab it, but keep in mind: it's a beta. If you aren't used to downloading these, check out the simple instructions in the final paragraph below.

As you may already know, Apple released the final, shipping version of Safari 4 today during its inaugural WWDC '09 keynote. You can install it, but be warned: the 1Password plug-in does not work in the officially shipping version of Safari 4 (it works fine in the Safari 4 beta though), so you will (very temporarily) be without your 1Password data if you install Safari 4 right now.

For a workaround, you can, of course, opt to hold off on installing Safari 4 until we can ship at least a beta update. Since we know you probably won't wait, you can keep 1Password running in the Dock, always waiting for a quick manual copy and paste of your login info.

Naturally, we are already hard at work on updating 1Password for Safari 4. If you just gotta install the new Safari as soon as possible, open the Updates panel in 1Password's preferences and enable checking for betas. We hope to have beta support for Safari 4 by this evening (note: hope). Otherwise, if all goes well, an official update should be out (note: should) by tomorrow.

David Chartier
Chief Media Producer