Getting passwords on other computers

[Rob]

Hi,
I am new to Passwordmaker.  Just added it to FF 1.5.0.1 after a great review in InternetWeek.

However, I am a little confused as to how I will be able to sign in to websites that PWM has generated a password for when I am not at "my" computer.  I have read most of the manual and FAQ.

The online version, to me, appears to only generate passwords when I need to create one, but does not allow me to use the ones PWM has already created on "my" computer, to sign in.

I have read about the import/export of the .rdf file, but that only seems to apply if you have the FF extension installed on every computer I use.

Please help, if you can, with some of these clarifications.

Thanks

[Eric H. Jung]

Hi Rob,

The online version, to me, appears to only generate passwords when I need to create one, but does not allow me to use the ones PWM has already created on "my" computer, to sign in.

No, this isn't accurate. The online edition -- and all editions -- generate the exact same passwords as the Firefox edition. You only have to make sure the settings you choose are consistent between editions. Give it a try!

Let us know if you have other questions,
Eric

[Guest]

No, this isn't accurate. The online edition -- and all editions -- generate the exact same passwords as the Firefox edition. You only have to make sure the settings you choose are consistent between editions. Give it a try!

Hi,
I gave the online version and the Javascript version tries on my old home computer with IE, and lo and behold, it worked!  As you said, I just needed to make sure I had all the settings the same.

This makes this much more appealing to me, knowing I can use this anywhere.  I was thinking I was going to be limited to using only my one computer, which would be a little out-of-the-question.

Now I can start changing passwords, and using PWM everywhere...I hope.  It makes sense anyway for security reasons.

[Eric H. Jung]

Glad to be of help :)
-Eric

[Guest]

Great, now I can't get the couple that I've changed and tested to work, and now I think I'm locked out of one!

[Eric H. Jung]

Can you be more specific... what happened?

[Rob]

Sorry for the delay, and thank you for your replies.

Right off the bat here I want to say THIS WAS NOT A FAULT OF PASSWORDMAKER, this was a fault of my own doing.  Here is the explanation anyway though.

I changed a couple of passwords before I really understood how this worked.  I didn't take note of the settings, specifically the hash settings, so I could not for the life of me figure out what the password for one of them was.  I did get the other two, though.

Here lies the problem, which truly has nothing to do with this valuable piece of software, but more to do with my quick-password-change and quick-try-and-recover stupidity, this one password I could not recover was for one of my gmail accounts.  When I could not get it to reproduce it, I clicked on the 'forgot username / password' link in gmail.  There, it asks for your username, and nothing else on the screen (other than for your password in another field if you have remembered that but not your username).  The next screen says it has sent an updated link to my 'alternate' email address which I can click on to sign back in to gmail.  HOWEVER, I must not have entered an alternate email address, as I have received no email from gmail at any of my other accounts!

I thought they would give me a link to answer my secret question or something, but that was not an option.  They do refer to the secret question in their FAQ, but I was not given that choice, no matter where I looked.

So, at the end of the day, this was my fault, not Passwordmakers and everyone reading should please take note of this.

[Eric H. Jung]

Rob, thanks for the explanation. But have you been able to log into that gmail account?

[Rob]

No, not yet, as I have not heard from gmail admin.  I believe gmail has issued another password which I cannot access as I do not have any email response to verify a change.

I will wait and see I guess.

[rook]

Its good to hear you can use this on multiple pcs...  I too thought I would be stuck to using it on one pc.

[edit]
i am having trouble getting the online version to come up with the same password as the one that the FF extension generates for me...  You say its just a matter of making the settings be the same?
[/edit]

[Miquel 'Fire' Burns]

Yes, settings need to match.

[Eric H. Jung]

In particular, make sure the character sets match. This is almost always the source of the mismatched generated passwords.

[sailinship]

Well, to make things easy, what would be the best way to set up a default for all sites, or at least most sites.

[Miquel 'Fire' Burns]

Depends on the sites you're using. The hardest part is the character set actually, (and using leet after the hashing) because some sites don't allow certain characters to be used, and the default settings tend to have these characters.

[tanstaafl]

'Easy' is not always 'secure'. Since the hard part about PWM is learning how to use it, and making it *extremely* secure is in reality just as easy as ... not making it secure ...

What I do is:

1. Modify the Defaults in such a way that only I know how I changed them, but can easily recreate the changes from memory should it become necessary.

2. Use the defaults for all non-critical sites that allow the character set I chose for the Defaults

3. Create an account for any non-critical sites that do not like a character that is used in my defaults character set and put that account in a group created for that purpose...

4. Create groups for more important accounts organized in a manner that makes sense to me...

5. Devise tricks for modifying passwords for each group, that are easy to remember (based on a little 'algorithm' I developed that works on the group/account name)