2006-08-08

Open source password managers

Open source password managers (tested on Windows)

KeePass provides the best functionality of the packages noted. It has a nice looking UI, with ability to export data into txt, html, cvs. It also imports existing password data from other applications. The autofill setup is configurable, although the global auto-type hot-key didn't seem to work in all cases. Users may in particular like the mouse movement entropy based password generation.
Mirek's PINs provides a system wide hotkey to paste userid/password into browsers
based on URLs currently accessed. Special emphasis is given to the ability of setting expiry dates. Data can be saved in cleartext.
PasswordSafe has a long history. It offers various password generation options, the easily readable password generation is a nice touch, although would only be used if your digital backups disappear altogether. It is unclear how it connects to a browser, although there is "autotype" functionality? Data can be saved in cleartext.
Secure Data Manager (SDM) is developed in Java and available with Java WebStart. Provides basic functionality with less integration into Windows.
PasswordMaker offered as an extension for Firefox, IE, and others, also as a standalone version. It generates passwords based on a master password and site URL (and date and username too if needed). The generated passwords are not stored, always generated on the fly. So there is not way to print a list of userids/passwords, which could be considered a security feature. Is is also not clear what is the process of changing existing settings for a particular account, as those are also not stored? The current version also does not a way to keep existing passwords for certain sites.
KED Password Manager written in Python/GTK2, mainly targeting *nix based systems.

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