In today’s society of identity theft and other online illegalities, most people are seeking ways to secure their private information, and 1Password by Agile Web Solutions breezily compiles all your separate accounts and generates ridiculously complex passwords to thwart the efforts of any theft. Instead of relying on yourself to remember the many different usernames and passwords for all the sites you use, 1Password auto-fills them for you, thereby preventing you from wracking your brain, and – as the auto-fill feature doesn’t require typing away at the keyboard – it conveniently prevents any key loggers from recording your information.

1Password is compatible with various browers, including Safari, Firefox, Flock, Camino, OmniWeb, DEVONagent, Fluid, and NetNewsWire. Some definite pluses of this app is that all the information is encrypted, and you are able to download it to your computer; should you wish to create new logins on your computer, you can then sync them to your iPhone, or vice versa. However, while the desktop use is nice, the Firefox plug-ins are slightly cumbersome, and the desktop application almost seems better suited for corporate users who need to categorize passwords or for home users who need more control over their privacy. Several of the advertised features on the 1Password website are mostly selling points, like the Anti-Phishing and KeyLogging prevention claims, as these are generally understood with auto-fill capabilities. The claim, as well, that the auto-fill feature is superior to Safari’s seems idle poppycock to the layman – who really needs that much more efficiency when it comes to automatically filling in web forms and synchronizing data? For people who are thinking of switching from the Blackberry to the iPhone, they should be happy to note that the features of 1Password closely mirror their built-in password encryption/storage called “Password Keeper”.

To the layman, 1Password may seem a bit confusing. After creating the initial Unlock Code, there are relatively scant directions, the screen depicting merely three options of “Login,” “Note,” and “Password.” The Login section is straightforward enough, giving you the choice of various sites to fill in and save your username and password information. Yet, the choice of “Regular Login” is a case of semantics gone awry, as to a layman, the word “regular” conveys nothing but confusion. Perhaps “Custom Login” or “New Login” would have been a better choice, as this denotes the place you customarily use. The “Note” option may as well not even be listed, as I could find no use for it, though I did notice a glitch in the iPhone magnifying feature while fiddling around with it. It seems throughout 1Password’s pages (Login, Notes, etc), the magnifying feature does not work as it usually does – moving in perfect tandem with your finger – but instead remains stubbornly frozen in one spot, completely unusable. A small glitch, yes, but a glitch nevertheless..

1Password is pretty smooth, overall, in its ability to be navigated and understood by everyone, but its usefulness is undeniable. For being free, it has the potential to save you a lot… a lot more money.