RoboForm - Feb/Mar '04

RoboForm

Do you tire of having to fill out multi-page Web site forms again and again with the same information? Can you remember or find every password you have created for specialized sites from eBay to Yahoo? Enter RoboForm by Siber Systems Inc., the best solution I have encountered for those tedious forms and password tasks.

When you install RoboForm there is an option to have it attach itself to your browser’s toolbar. It can be customized to display half a dozen buttons. To define your default forms information, click “Identities” and go through the tabs to fill out your name, snail mail address, e-mail address, phone number and so forth. RoboForm is remarkably thorough, with fields such as “Employee ID,” “Birth Place,” “Income” and “Business Type,” and the ability to add more. The “Default Password” tab allows you to specify a default user name and password for new Web sites, and it has “Password Question” and “Password Answer” fields you can fill in with data such as “What’s your mother’s maiden name?” and “Smith.”

RoboForm then waits as you troll the Internet in search of service sites such as Yahoo mail. When you elect to sign up for a Web service and the Web form displays, RoboForm’s little box pops up, listing your identity. You select your identity and RoboForm correctly fills in the field names with your default values. When you are done, it offers the option to save the new Web site-specific information as a “Passcard.” Thereafter, any time you access that site, RoboForm pops up and displays the site Passcard for you to select. Under the “Options” menu, you also can specify it automatically fill in the fields. Other options include the ability to block certain sites from causing RoboForm to pop up. For example, if there is a form you never intend to fill out, you can tell RoboForm not to do so.

What happens if the Web site doesn’t like your default five-letter password and requires eight? Unfortunately, RoboForm doesn’t quite understand the situation. It already has saved the invalid Passcard. When you specify the new password and click “OK,” RoboForm thinks you are creating another Passcard for the same site and offers to name it differently. You have to tell it to overwrite the previous inadequate Passcard.

Touchy Data
Mundane information such as your gender and job title are not the only tidbits RoboForm can save about you. It gladly will accept credit card and bank information too, for those items you purchase online. “Whoa!” I said aloud when I first discovered this feature. “I am not sure I like that. What if hackers get control of my computer? Can they access my credit card information?” “Not to worry,” assured Robo-Form’s documentation.

You can password-protect your whole identity with an encryption scheme called “3DES.” A hacker would have a hard time getting through it, particularly if you use a nasty password, such as “glyps34&5.” Write it down somewhere though. You can’t retrieve it if you forget it. If you really are concerned, you can store all of your Passcards and identity information on an easily removable remote drive, such as a memory stick.

Multiple Personalities
One of the neatest features is the ability to clone or create another identity. If you manage your clients’ computer affairs, for example, you can create an identity for them, so you can gather Web information about their cases. You even could e-mail the identities to your clients if they want to use RoboForm from their own machines.

Custom Help
The “Help” file is generally helpful. Keep in mind it’s an online help system. This means you have to be online to access both the standard (entire) and the abbreviated toolbar manual. Dial-up users might find this annoying. You can save the manual to a Portable Document Format file if you have the right tools and know-how, but the links still refer to online sources.

There is an entire one-page list of browsers RoboForm supports, with caveats of course. The product will support most versions of Internet Explorer (down to 4.0); it will support Mozilla and Netscape 7.0 (but not earlier versions of Netscape) only if you install a special adapter. With other browsers such as America Online 5 to 9, Microsoft Network, MSN 8 and Intuit’s Quicken, there are restrictions. You can download a trial version that allows a couple of dozen Passcards (the full version allows an unlimited number).

Siber Systems Inc.
(877) ROBO-FORM

www.roboform.com

Price: $29.95 for single license, sliding scale for volume purchases

Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP

Reviewed by Peter Bates, founder and president of Bates Communications, a desktop publishing and Web design company in Boston.

Feb/Mar '04 Issue

PROS
Useful program for filling out tedious online forms. Supports multiple identities so you can define auto-fill text for other individuals. Robust encryption scheme for sensitive data.

CONS
Online help file only. Creating multiline text for RoboForm can be a clumsy process.

VERDICT
For Internet Explorer users, this is an excellent product with only minor quirks. Take it for a test drive before upgrading to the full version.