In an appearance on the MacNotables podcast episode #914, Macworld Senior Editor Chris Breen shared some great words and anecdotes about 1Password with host Chuck Joiner. We couldn't mince Chris' segment, so check out a transcript of his kind words about the benefits of using 1Password:
I managed to lose a password or a username to BackJack, a Mac-friendly online backup service. Trying to get my information back was... their security was really, really good, so that’s the positive. But trying to recover a lost password was painful. You had to go through five different windows and steps to get to this thing. Normally when you lose a password you click a little link, they ask for your e-mail address, and they send a new code to your address so you can reset your password. Not a big deal.BackJack take this stuff seriously, all your stuff is encrypted, so it isn’t just a simple email. You have to go to the site, remember what was the password for this, a different one for that, and oh I’ve forgotten that one too, and... Oh never mind I’ll just create a new account and start over, which tended to be the faster way to do it.
Now that I use 1Password, that won’t ever happen again.
I love [1Password], it is a utility that will store both your online passwords and credit card information. So when you go to a website that you signed up for eight months ago and you neglected to write down the password or you wrote it down on a piece of paper and then throw it away somewhere, [1Password] will store your passwords. All you have to do is click on the “1P” browser button and it will say “fill in login for so and so” and off you go.
A number of credit cards have been compromised lately, as many people who have been getting those notices at home as calls from Citi Bank or wherever your bank is, saying “we just wanted to check these charges because we think there’s some suspicious activity on your account. It looks like your credit card has been compromised, so we’re sending you a new card.”
Well now you have to go through your credit card statement and try to recall which service is attached to this credit card. Well there’s iTunes, Netflix, TiVo, your ISP, this and that. Next, you have to go back to all those sites and remember what the login password was—1Password fills that in for you—and you have to enter new credit card information. Once again, you’ve got that stored in 1Password, so with a single click, it puts in your credit card name, your number, security code, and mailing address if they need that as well. Something that would have normally taken me two or three hours to do, I was able to do in a half an hour with 1Password, which made it totally worth whatever I paid.
I hope those guys are selling trillions of copies of 1Password.
Thanks Chris! We aren't quite in McDonalds sales territory yet, but we'll be sure to put up a sign when the 1 trillionth 1Password user is served!