Mac App Reviews

AllSecure ($40: Shareware, v1.0.3) is a password and information encryption app.

The app is one of many secure information managers available for the mac right now. MacHeist has also recently given it out as a loot item (Shareware software given away for free to promote the app). As this version of the app was only released last month, there are not many reviews of it at this time. (disclaimer: data you will see entered into the app is fake. This app was downloaded through MacHeist)

Interface Rating:

This app is one of the prettiest apps that I’ve seen on OS X. This is saying a lot, as there are no shortage of good looking apps for OS X these days.

As you can see, the items you store in Allsecure reside on virtual shelves in a large vault like safe. This theme is consistent throughout the app, even the icon is a vault with a padlock on it. You can organize your entries into several categories displayed on the sidebar to help organize the information. The icons are all vibrant and and portray the contents of the items very well. The different color names are all user-set per item. To edit or enter information into items you use a transparent inspector panel.

This is also quite attractive and offers you different views and fields based on what type of item you’ve chosen.

All together, this app is one of the best looking I’ve seen, period.

Functionality Rating:

To rate the functionality, I’m going to take into account the features AllSecure’s website advertises and how it’s implementation compares to other apps in this category.

Secure Information Manager This is the primary function of the app, and what its probably the best at. There are many different types of information you can choose.

You can see all of these in the main window above. AllSecure will store and handle all these pretty well. This is a fairly good range of types, but I wish there were more. 1Password offers more types by default in its secure information storage or wallet items.

Entries are searchable and can be added to different groups. There some problems and missing features however. You can’t group items by type other than having them be a part of a group. There is no import or export, which is a real deal breaker for me. I don’t really want to keep all my private data in a app that cannot export the data to another app. This is especially bad because just about every other app in this area exports to some format or another, including 1Password, Wallet, and KeePassX.

Also missing is form filling data, such as name, address, and credit card info. EdgeRift talks about how insecure the Safari autofill is and implies that AllSecure will replace that with a better, more secure, solution. This isn’t quite true, as there is no way fill anything other than username-password pairs with AllSecure. If EdgeRift is going to replace the Safari autofill feature, then they will have to address this issue.

Password Manager As a password manager, AllSecure does all the basic things you would expect. It stores password and username pairs and the URL.

Password generation is accessed through the key icon next to the password field.

It offers most of the options that one would expect, though not as many as other apps such KeePassX or Apple’s Keychain Access.

It has the ability to auto-fill the information into the website forms. This only works with Safari and you have to go to the inspector for the item you want and click the arrow next to the URL. Certainly not as nice as the built-in browser password managers or either 1Password or Wallet. Wallet does much the same thing, but it also has a menubar item that will fill the login info into the webpage without you having to leave the browser window. 1Password has browser plug-ins for all of the common OS X browsers which offer access to all the password management features of the app, in the browser. AllSecure trails the pack in this case, and doesn’t have a good password experience compared to the other apps.

Secure Document Archive The final main feature of AllSecure is the encrypted storage of files. The metaphor is safe deposit boxes inside the main vault, which works very well. However, there are some problems with the implementation of the feature.

As you can see, there are only three options available. Adding files, deleting the contents of the box, and extracting all the files in the box. You can’t see a list of the contents of the box, and you can’t choose to just extract one of the files. You also cannot work with a file that is in the box, like you could with an encrypted disk image. To work with the contents of the files, you must extract the whole archive (which could take a while if it’s large, so you are not going to be putting music or videos into these boxes). Work with the files on the desktop or elsewhere, delete the files in the archive and re-add the changed files and other originals back. You also have to securely delete the files you extracted, which many people don’t know you have to, or don’t know how.

The other programs I’ve mentioned handle files a bit differently, but in a much more user friendly way. Wallet and KeePassX offer the ability to attach files to entries, so you can see the encrypted files, Wallet will even let you quicklook the encrypted files. None of these apps are as good as a true encryption solution such as TrueCrypt or an encrypted disk image created with Disk Utility. But, there are some notable missing features that keep this function less than useful right now in AllSecure.

Misc Both Wallet and 1Password offer iPhone apps and syncing of encrypted info to the iPhone. AllSecure doesn’t offer an iPhone app. There is a rumor that there will be one sometime down the line, but nothing solid.

Update: EdgeRift has confirmed to me in an email that an iPhone app will be released along with version two of AllSecure in the future.

Value Rating:

EdgeRift is charging $40 for AllSecure. I think this is over priced. Arcylic is charging half that for Wallet, which does everything AllSecure does in a slightly better way. Agile charges $40 for 1Password, which handles passwords and secure information in a far superior way. The value of AllSecure just is not up there with that of its main competitors.

Overall Rating:

AllSecure offers one of the best interfaces on OS X. However, the functionality isn’t on par with it’s main competitors in this space. The value of the software isn’t near the others, the closest program, features wise, Wallet is half the price of AllSecure.

AllSecure is a promising application, but EdgeRift either needs to lower the price to reflect the true value of the software, or it needs to spend more time to develop AllSecure into a mature app before becoming truly competitive with Wallet or 1Password.

encryption, password

This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009, 2:19 pm and is filed under Review, Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.