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Posts Tagged ‘firefox’

Can I Play HTML5 YouTube Videos in Firefox Right Now? [Ask Lifehacker]

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Dear Lifehacker,
I’ve read about how HTML5 will change the way I use the web, but it seems like the biggest example of HTML5 in action is on sites like YouTube—which don’t support my favorite browser, Firefox. What’s the deal?

I find myself, and I’m sure tons of others, caught in the Adobe Flash Player vs. HTML5 battle. Flash Player runs terribly on my iMac. Videos on different sites either tell me to install Flash components, show up as blank white areas, load perpetually (CNET TV) or tell me to adjust global storage, and so on. If they do play, I often get the stuttering/buffering that drives me crazy. I had the latest version of Flash Player, uninstalled that and installed the latest 10.1 Beta3, and it’s just as bad.

I considered signing up for YouTube’s HTML5 beta test, but that only works for Safari, Chrome, and IE, not Firefox. I’ve read about Mozilla’s stance on this issue, too.

I apologize for the long intro to my question, but do you know of any Firefox addon or plugin that installs the H.264 codec? We already have to install a plugin for Flash Player, so perhaps it’s possible someone can do this for H.264.

Thanks for any help,
Fighting with Flash

Howdy Fighting,
That’s a good question, and unfortunately one to which there’s no great answer. It actually is technically possible to play HTML5 YouTube videos in Firefox, but it’s extremely convoluted (details below)—and Mac users like yourself won’t have any luck. First, for those who aren’t familiar with why Firefox is excluded from YouTube’s (and some other video sites’) HTML5 support, here’s why:

The Problem

In order to move to HTML5 from Flash, video sites like YouTube need to host their videos in formats friendly to Flash-free HTML5 embedding. Unfortunately there’s no default standard for the format HTML5 videos should use.

As a dedicated open-source, open-standards browser, Firefox chose to support the Ogg Theora video format for HTML5 video. Like Firefox, Ogg Theora is free and open; it’s not covered by any patents, so it requires no licensing and is completely free to use for everyone involved.

Other browser makers, like Chrome and Safari, support H.264 for HTML5 video. Unlike Ogg Theora, H.264 is patented, and would theoretically require browser makers to pay licensing fees to use it (though the company that owns licensing rights to H.264 have said that they’ll offer it royalty free until 2016). Additionally, the issue isn’t just about licensing.

Some tests have shown H.264 to perform better than Ogg Theora in side-by-side comparisons. Apple’s stance on the matter, via Wikipedia, is that “H.264 performs better and is already more widely supported.” For video sites like YouTube, the main concern is likely which format can deliver the highest quality video with the greatest compression rates. Unfortunately for Team Firefox (and supporters of free and open web standards), it’s looking like H.264 might deliver the best results.

It’s worth nothing that browsers can support multiple video formats for HTML5 support, but currently Chrome is the only browser that supports both H.264 and Ogg Theora (though through the Frankenstein efforts of Google Chrome Frame, Internet Explorer also gets support for both). The chart below (from Wikipedia) lays it all out:

As you can see, unless either Firefox changes its stance or sites like YouTube decide to support a free alternative like Ogg Theora, Firefox fanatics don’t have a clear way to watch HTML5 YouTube videos.

The “Solution”

If you’re extremely desperate to watch HTML5 YouTube videos but you absolutely do not want to switch to another browser, you’ve got one simple-yet-absurd solution that’ll only work on Windows:

Watch HTML5 YouTube Videos in Firefox (on Windows)

  1. Install the IE Tab Firefox extension (or one of the other IE-in-Firefox extensions).
  2. Install Google Chrome Frame for IE.

  3. In the IE Tab preferences inside Firefox and set YouTube to always open inside an IE Tab (see image below).
  4. Visit the YouTube HTML5 Video Player opt-in page (if you’ve set up IE Tab correctly above, it should open in an IE Tab inside Firefox) and click the Join the HTML5 Beta link at the bottom of the page.
  5. Go watch an HTML5-supported YouTube video.

And… that’s it. Ridiculous, but I’ve tried it, and it seems to work. (Though, unsurprisingly, it seemed buggy, and worked much better in straight Chrome than it did in either IE with Chrome Frame or Firefox with IE and Chrome Frame.) Unfortunately it doesn’t help Mac users like Fighting with Flash much, but it’s the best we could do.

More than anything, the convoluted process involved in watching an HTML5 YouTube video in Firefox only serves to underscore the problem. It’s not something that’ll likely be solved overnight (though I guess if Mozilla decides to cave into H.264, change could come pretty quickly), but it’s a good reminder that important, web-changing technology almost always comes with a few speed bumps.

Love,
Lifehacker

Got a better method you’re using, or want to weigh in on this whole H.264 vs. Ogg Theora battle? Let’s hear it in the comments.






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WAYN: Social Networking For The International Adventurers

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

00 backpacker to machu picchu.jpgEver since I read the story of “The Lost City of Inca”, I’ve always wanted to visit Machu Picchu in Peru. I have put the name in the list of places that I will visit someday in the future.

I’m sure that many people share the same passion for world traveling, visiting exquisite corners of the world and feasting the eyes with breathtaking views. But sightseeing is not the only form of adventure you can get from traveling. There are others who prefer exploring the darkness of caves, crawling on the harsh textures of rock faces, challenging the rush rivers, or simply enjoying a cocktail while watching the sunset on a pristine beach.

These adventures will surely enrich one’s life. But everything will taste sweeter if you could share the stories to people with similar enthusiasm. People that you will find in WAYN (I guess it stands for: “Where Are You Now?”).

Share The Action

One glance at the front page of this social network for adventure travelers, and you can already guess what WAYN is all about. A high adrenalin background image and a small blue “f” logo in the corner shows that this is definitely not a site for those who spend their leisure time with Ruby on Rails.

social network for travelers

Now let’s dig in a little bit deeper. The registration step is a little bit different from the usual because you need to provide data of your location.

social network for travelers

If you choose to take the Facebook route, the service will attach itself to your virtual social life. WAYN will fetch information from your Facebook account and send your WAYN content to your wall.

social network for travelers

But of course the exchange won’t happen unless you give the permission first.

03b Allow updates to Facebook.jpg

Start The Adventure

After logging in you will arrive at an “overwhelming” place. Literally. There are so many things here to explore and customize that one might not know where to start.

Let’s take it one step at a time. On the upper left there’s the main menu consisting of links to other main pages such as: Homepage, Calendar, Trips, and Activities.

06a Sidebar menu - WAYN.COM.jpg

But before you explore any further, the first thing you need to do is to write down the answer to “what would you love to do?”

06b What would you love to do - WAYN.COM.jpg

Then complete your profile by uploading a photo. To encourage members to upload their picture, there’s an incentive of 1 point given to every member who do so. The points that you earn can be used for further enhancing your social status in WAYN. Then you can add activities that you want to do and places that you want to visit.

06c profile photo n add - WAYN.COM.jpg

Enrich your adventures by adding your friends to your circle. You can do a name search filtered by countries, or you can also do an email search if you know your friend’s email address.

Another way to add friends is by interacting with people around you. In the WAYN context, this means those whose location is geographically near you.

06d Search and interact - WAYN.COM.jpg

Then you can start checking out news from other WAYN members, and try to find people with similar passions.

06e News - WAYN.COM.jpg

But maybe the most interesting thing about WAYN is the ability to plan a trip. Start by clicking the “Add” button from the “Add Locations” box. Then add other information about the trip, including the description, name of the place and the date of the trip.

08 Create Trip.jpg

The you can enrich the trip log by adding photos, videos, notes and sharing it with your friends. A general trip map (powered by Google Maps) is automatically drawn there.

08b Completing Trip Log.jpg

So, do you love adventures? Have you traveled to the other side of the world? Do you know of other social networks for travelers like WAYN?  Please share using the comments below.

Image credit: EduardoZ

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Foobar Combines Firefox Address and Search Boxes [Downloads]

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Firefox: If you want to compact your user interface in Firefox and turn your address box into a destination for not just URLs but searches too, Foobar combines the address box and search box into one.

If you often find yourself typing in a search command into the address box when you actually meant to use the little search box off to the side, Foobar is a handy addition to your Firefox arsenal. Install the extension and your address bar becomes a little more spartan, the address box and search box are now one.

URLs typed into the box take you to the site, but anything outside a recognized address like HTTP, FTP, or ABOUT: becomes a search in the selected search engine. In the above screenshot my entry of site:lifehacker.com Firefox will pull up the Google search results for Firefox on Lifehacker.com.

Note: Sharp-eyed readers noticed Foobar is similar to previously reviewed Omnibar—minus the handy shortcut building features in Ombinar. If you want your interface condensing with more kick, you’ll want to check it out.

Have a handy Firefox extension—interface-altering or otherwise—to share? Let’s hear about it in the comments.

Foobar [Mozilla Add-ons via How-To Geek]






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9 Handy FireFox Add-ons For Every Day Use

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

Having worked as a project manager at several companies and having to monitor my own projects there’s a certain list of things I do to check on often (and I still do). Some of the things are SEO related, some are tech tasks, some help to achieve the marketing goals. Some of the things are just general but still it’s very convenient to have the nice set tools to perform the actions that you do on a regular basis. Today I’m going to write about Firefox add-ons that I have added my browser options (yes, I’m an addicted Firefox lover) as a project manager and just a human. All the add-ons listed help me in my daily work and I don’t know how much time I would spend if I had to search from all the information they give to me manually. I decided to divide this list into 2 sections-  the add-ons that I use as a usual human being and the add-ons I find extremely useful for the project management. So here we go.

The Add-ons for regular Internet Surfers

1. The WOT Add-on (Web of trust)
Web of Trust warns you about risky sites that cheat customers, deliver malware or send spam. Never in my life did I have a problem with some serious viruses infecting my computer until about a month ago. Suddenly my browser got frozen and in about 5 minutes all the programs and applications on my computer stopped working while the antivirus software that I had (kasperski) haven’t showed any thread which surprised me tremendously. Having restarted the system I trying at least something I was continuously getting the notice that I have to send a sms to some address and buy the security code that should unblock my computer or something along that line. I had to reinstall the system on my pc but this was not the end yet.

On the next day I found out that I got the virus on my server that have infected all the .html and .php files. I knew from the server logs that the virus got there from my computer and thanks God I had files backed up.
Doing my daily job I visit hundreds of website and I had no idea where I could get such a deadly virus from. That’s when I started thinking that I need in some way to exclude the potentially dangerous websites or at least know what websites have low reputation. Now I’m a happy user of the WOT add-on. It works very simply and graphically clear.


Next to every link and in the browser address line you will see the circle that changes the color from green to red depending on website trustworthiness, green being safe and red very poor. They gather this information from website visitors using the WOT and you can also rank the website for several parameters like trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy etc. You can also leave a review if you say got infected from this website and want to warn the rest of the community. In case you get to the dangerous website they will show you a big pop-up with the warning before actually prompting you to the page, where you can choose where you want to see why the page is considered as dangerous, ignore the warning and go to the page or leave the page. If you have children there is also a children control option where the websites will adult content will not be available for browsing. You can get additional info on WOT add-on here.

2. Read It Later Add-on


 Read It Later allows you to save pages of interest to read later. It’s very simple but very useful, at least for
me. Browsing tens of interesting pages daily I often don’t have time to read them right away. I used to add the pages I wanted to read to the bookmarks and then was totally forgetting about them or couldn’t find the pages I needed and finally I ended up with the long-long list of bookmarks cluttered with stuff of any kind one can ever imagine. Read it later add-on allows you to add the page to the read list in one click. You can right-click with the mouse anywhere on page you’d like to read later and choose an option “read this page later”.You can also copy the link and add it to the library clicking on small yellow arrow on the top right cornet of the browser.

3. Ad block Plus

A simple nice add-on that blocks add-on the pages. Once installed it will show up in a red hexagon in the top right of the browser window. Nothing special to say about it but it makes my life easier.

4. AddThis

AddThis is a nice add-on making sharing and bookmarking simple. The list of social icons will be added to your
browser toolbar area as well as to right-click mouse options. You just click on the icon, the application connects to your social network account and posts the update there. Here’s the sample how it looks in Twitter:

Though I use AddThis I still have a separate toolbar for stumble as this is one of my favorite websites and I love to have the options to leave a comment, thumb up or just view some cool stuff directly from the toolbar. You can install this add-on here.

Add-ons that I use in my work of a project manager

If you are starting the career of the project manager in some company or just have a start-up project I do recommend you to add this add-ons to the browser as they can not only make your life easier but help you choose the right direction in your marketing campaign as well as provide help to the customers if they run into some problems with the website.

1. Fire FTP
This might be one of the most Firefox add-ons. This plugin allows you to upload files to the server as any other FTP client but you don’t have to install it separately on your computer. The interface is quite intuitive. On the left you will see list of files on your computer and on the right once connected to the server you will see the files on the server. When you start the files upload or download you will see the how the process flows in the bottom area, the connection errors will show up there as well. You can choose the mode for files transfer (binary, ASCII and automatic) and whether to show or not to show the hidden files.

I started using FireFtp after my website files on the server were infected. Before that I was using Total Commander for years which I had to reinstall as well and since I didn’t want to get used to any other similar programs I decided to give a try to Fire FTP.

It’s not perfect and the websites in the other tabs and windows start working slower when FireFtp is working and there are now usual hot keys but it’s not bad at all. I like the error reports and I like when the program says ZZZZ when it’s connected to the server but not command is performed. This can be actually the only reason why I’m using it :)

2. HTTP Fox


HttpFox monitors and analyzes all incoming and outgoing HTTP traffic between the browser and the web servers. In simple words it shows you how the website interacts with the server and if any errors occur you can get the details of the error without having to check the server log files. I used to work for the company who developed a cool CMS system running on php and flex. Working with the customers, uploading files to their servers and helping them to actually manage the website I was facing some php or flex errors pretty often but the problem was that these were the errors the admin area was showing and I had no idea how to handle that. I’m neither a programmer nor a flash developer and this was a real nightmare for me. One of my friends recommended me to install the HTTP Fox plugin and there hasn’t been a single problem I couldn’t fix on my own.

I guess things would still work for me much easier if I had a better php knowledge. The way it works now- I start HTTP Fox (toogle HTTP Fox as they call it in the application), get the error description, go to google to type it there and then check for solutions how the error can be fixed on the php and flash forums :) With the HTTP Fox add-on you can also check whether some website will save a cookie on your computer as well as get some other useful info.

3. Fire Bug


Fire Bug is a great add-on that will be of a great help not just for a project manager but an advanced develop as well. The number of features is enormous but in my daily work I use just a few. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. I used Firebug multiple times to customize and make small changes on the WordPress themes, to get info on the images and embedded videos and flash files and get info about properties of the page elements. You can call the application from the Tools section of the browser or just right clicking on some elements on the page.

4. SeoQuake SEO extension


SeoQuake extension is a must if you perform any type of work related to SEO, links exchange, online advertising etc. It gives you a profound info about the website, helps you study your competitors and potential partners. At one glance you can see the page PageRank, the number of pages from the domain name indexed in Google, Yahoo and Bing, Alexa Rank, the age of the domain name and the direct link to the whois info. There’s information about internal and external links on the page as well as the information on the keywords density ( you can check what main keywords your competitors use and how often and where on page).

The SeoQuake extension has another cool feature- so called Yahoo links- showing the number (and the list) of external URLs pointing to the page and domain name. Extremely useful when you need to check who’s linking to your competitors.

5. Search Status


That’s a good alternative to SeoQuake but I prefer using them both. By default the Search Status add-on options will show up in the bottom right corner of the browser alone with the traffic stats from Alexa (alexa rank), Compete and mozRank by SeoMoz. Earlier I was using Alexa stats from the SeoQuake and had a separate Compete add-on installed and now I have them all in one place. Some of the other features Search Status add-on include: no follow links analysis, general page’s link report, stats about indexed pages and keywords density, whois info etc. There’s almost the same features as in SeoQuake and some additional ones but they are not convenient to use. I prefer clicking on an icon in the toolbar rather than going to the footer, clicking on the icon and only then getting the list of options available. It would be perfect is someone could combine these two.

That’s it, I’ve listed all the add-ons that I use daily. I’ll be glad to hear what add-ons you use and how they help you in your work. I still have a place for two or three until my browser stops working so do let me know :)

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Viewing Recent Searches On Google & Why Would You Care?

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Without doubt, Google is the premier search engine for the Internet world. So much so that its name is both a noun and verb. We not only link to Google, but we also “google” stuff. Many of us “google” something several times a day because of its speed and accuracy of search results. But as a Google user, you may not know that this mighty search engine actually keeps track of your search history – of what, when, and where you looked for stuff on the Internet.

If you don’t know how Google does this, simply link over to http://www.google.com/history and sign into your account, if need be. On your Google search page, you will see a calendar that links to all your daily activities across the web, including recent searches on Google. It breaks down your search history into nine categories, including images, products, and blogs you’ve visited or searched for.

recent searches on Google

Advantages Of This Service

The advantages of this search history is pretty obvious. It can save you time in keeping track of your recent searches on Google. Searches are not as specific as keeping personalized bookmarks in your web browser, but say you spent a day or two researching a particular consumer product, or a topic for a school assignment. If you need to retrieve those queries and activity, you could simply click the dates in the calendar relevant to your search, or you could “google” the topic or keywords and have Google provide results based on your search history.

recent searches on Google

Also, you’ve no doubt noticed that when you begin typing in the Google search box in the Firefox or Safari web browser, for example, you typically get a list of suggested keywords that you might be looking for even before you finish typing. Those suggestions are based on your prior searches and visitations across the web, which in essence speeds up your search.

The search history also provides an organized list of sites and pages you visit the most. It keeps track of your web experiences only when you’re logged into your account. This is called “signed-in personalization”.  However, if you share your computer with others and you don’t sign out from your Google account, the results reflect searches by other users.

recent searches on Google

Disadvantages Of This Service

One of the biggest disadvantages to this is that if your Google account is ever accessed by others, they can view your recent searches on Google. If you log into your Google account on another computer and don’t log out, any searches done by other users can be saved to your account.

For example, when I view my Google search history, it includes topics like “horse riding,“ the “California State lottery,“ and “buddytv.“ These topics reflect the web activity of other members in my household, not me. But what might this service mean for users accessing their Google account on their job or public computer? If users don’t log out of their account, their search history is available to anyone who accesses it.

Removing Searches from your history

If there are some surreptitious search results that you would liked removed from your web history , it’s pretty easy to do so. Simply log into your web history account and click the “Remove items” link. You can delete selected links or your entire web history. However, remember, if you delete your entire history, Google will have to rebuild your signed-in personalization history, so all your new searches may take a little longer to conduct on your computer.

google search history

If you’re conducting some searches that you don’t want recorded, simply click the Pause link to turn off the service for your account. It remains paused until you re-enable it. You can also go into the settings of your Google account and totally disable the service all together. When you link into your Google account, click on My Account, and where it says “My products,” click Edit. From there you can remove the service.

google search history

Personally I don’t view my Google search history that much, but after doing some research for this article, I can see some advantages to accessing it from time to time, especially when I haven’t bookmarked relevant searches I might want to review. But for users who conduct surreptitious searches on a regular basis, it might be a good idea to disable the service all together and use other free services like Delicious to maintain and manage your private bookmarks.

So do you access your Google web history regularly? Do you find the service useful, or do you think it invades your privacy? Let us know.

In an upcoming article, I will explain how to clear previous Google searches in popular web browsers.

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KeeFox Integrates KeePass and Firefox (At Long Last) [Downloads]

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Firefox: KeeFox brings tight integration between the cross-platform, open-source password manager KeePass and Firefox, providing automatic logins, form filling, and more.

On Tuesday Kevin sang the praises of LastPass for password management, but a lot of readers are still in love with KeePass and aren’t ready to trust their passwords with a third-party service, no matter how secure. Unfortunately, despite some solid plug-ins, KeePass’s browser integration isn’t close to as tight as LastPass’s. That’s where KeeFox comes in.

This extension is still a little rough around the edges (it’s relatively young), but if you’re a die-hard KeePass user and Firefox is your browser of choice, it’s worth a little effort getting it set up. Once you do, the extension does automatic form filling, logs into sites instantly, offers one-click saving for adding new passwords to KeePass, and more.

The KeeFox extension is a free download, currently Windows only. If you use KeePass, this extension seems like a must have.






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BubbleUP jQuery Plugin for Your Menus

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

BubbleUP jQuery Plugin is a fun and easy plugin to get you started in jQuery. The effect is a nice starting point for learning the basics and many of the steps involved in creating other more intricate plugins you will make in the future.

With BubbleUP, images in a list will enlarge with a smooth animation when you move your mouse over it. Then, if you move the mouse out, it will reset to the original size with the same smooth animation. It has been tested on IE 7, Opera 10, Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, and Chrome 5 Beta.

jquery-bubble

Requirements: jQuery Framework /> Demo: http://aext.net/jquery-menu-plugin-bubbleup/ /> License: License Free

Sponsors

Pixmac: Stock Photos, Royalty Free Pictures and Images

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Join MakeUseOf On Twitter!

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Join MakeUseOf TwitterIf you have discovered MakeUseOf just recently and are one of our 170,000+ subscribers, please consider following us on Twitter as well.

You’ll be notified everytime there is a new post on the MakeUseOf Blog, a web app review on the MakeUseOf Directory or something new on Geeky Fun.

Plus, we would love it if you would re-tweet the posts and discuss them, so more people get to know about us and join our community.

Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter Now

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Firefox 4.0 Alpha 2 + Chrome-Like Plug-In Isolation = Fewer Browser Crashes [Downloads]

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Windows/Mac/Linux: Mozilla’s second Developer Preview of Firefox 4.0’s framework and back-end highlights a feature we’d heard was coming: separate processes for plug-ins. That means if (when) Flash or another plug-in crashes, there’s a good chance your browser won’t go with it.

This second alpha of Firefox 3.7—which is, confusingly, what will actually be released as 4.0—adds some performance improvements and HTML5 efficiencies, but the main new thing is the “out-of-process” plug-ins. Contained, stand-alone processes for each tab and add-on are likely in Firefox’s future, but starting off with the most likely crash candidates is a good start.

Photo by Christopher Blizzard.

Those interested in kicking the tires really hard on Flash crashes and reporting back to Mozilla should give it a go, as should anyone developing extensions or testing site compatibility. Everybody else looking to test it should try a more contained method.

This Firefox developer preview is a free download, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.






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The Easy, Any-Browser, Any-OS Password Solution [Passwords]

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Whenever we talk passwords, we always preach the same thing: Use strong, difficult-to-remember passwords, and different passwords for every site. Easy to say, extremely difficult to do through sheer willpower. I’ve tried many password-remembering systems, and this is what I’ve stuck with.

To paraphrase photographer Chase Jarvis, the best password manager is the one you have with you. Of all the password management utilities out there, I consider LastPass the most elegant compromise between convenience and security, and if you’re not using it already, I recommend you start. It’s mostly free, plugs into nearly any browser or smartphone, is KeePass compatible, and just works.

Why LastPass?

Why not just use KeePass for all my passwords and be done with it? It’s secure, open-source, extensible, and geeks like Gina have sworn by it as a password solution. Oh, and many readers love it, too. If I only used Firefox, KeeFox would provide a pretty good browser integration, and I could use Dropbox as a universal KeePass syncer.

I like KeePass. KeePass is friendly and locks down pretty tight. But when it comes to filling in web passwords, I want the path of least resistance—and I want to convert my friends and family into more secure practices, too. LastPass offers a few advantages over KeePass:

  • Universal: KeePass has a nice collection of extensions and plug-ins, but they’re all over the place when it comes to support, updating, and platforms. LastPass offers extensions for Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Safari on Windows, Mac, and Linux. There are a few gaps (Opera, mainly), but they’re covered in large part by free auto-filling bookmarklets (covered below) and desktop, USB, and mobile software, offered to LastPass’ premium subscribers.
  • Simple: LastPass has a multitude of options, settings, tools, and other knobs to twiddle, just like KeePass. If all you want, though, is a better kind of universal password manager that remembers your log-ins, simply install the browser extension, log into LastPass, and let it do its thing. It automatically prompts you to save passwords and form data—though you can turn that off—and fills out username/password fields, with an easy switch to another login name.
  • Secure, yet dummy-proof: My one fear with systems like KeePass, where I’m keeping my own database and, potentially, safe-keeping my own encryption key file, is that I’ll do something stupid and delete that file, or forget that ultra-secure master password. Sure, sure—you’re a superhero of forethought and memory, and would never do such a thing. Me, I’ve had too many brushes with Dropbox sync screw-ups (my ow fault for tinkering, usually) and memory gaps to leave it up to myself to serve as my own knight to protect the Holy Grail. LastPass uses a single master password to log into your account, sure, and if you lose that, you have to jump through quite a few hoops to get it back. But it is, technically, recoverable.

The short version of LastPass’ safety and privacy setup, and its technology is that the only thing stored on LastPass’ servers is a heavily encrypted bundle of your passwords and the sites they belong to—a form of host-proof hosting. They don’t have the encryption key to your passwords (only you do), and the encryption and decrypting all takes place on your own computer, where a backup copy of LastPass’ records is always kept. If LastPass became evil, or got hacked, the nefarious doers would have to buy one of Google’s server farms to break into its users’ passwords. And the service strongly encourages using strong, secure, randomized passwords with web sites, and it ends the use of insecure password storing by browsers.

Lastly, but just as important to many of our readers: yes, LastPass lets you import from KeePass, and many, many more password management apps and sites. Heck, if you only want to use LastPass for your web passwords and still keep your more intense security concerns in KeePass, go ahead. You can actually store non-web passwords and data in LastPass, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Intrigued? Even just a little interested? Here’s how LastPass can make your web browsing, or maybe the browsing of a friend with really weak passwords, more convenient and secure. Go ahead and create an account if you’d like, but LastPass actually recommends creating that account from a browser extension or software download.

Browser Extensions

The primary means of getting your username and passwords into your web sites. They’re all slightly different, but work basically the same: you click an icon, log into LastPass with your One True Password—making sure not to set your extension to remember that password—and then just got about your browsing. When you hit sites that ask for a username and password that you already know, LastPass will drop down a tiny little toolbar and ask if you want to save them. If you need a new username and password, you can have LastPass generate a random, highly secure couple, save them, and never worry about remembering them again.

Here’s LastPass’ (somewhat clinical) explanation of how their extensions work, demonstrated on Firefox:

One-Time Passwords

If you’re in a foreign land or on a sketchy Wi-Fi connection, the last thing you want to do is pass your universal LastPass password over the insecure airwaves. Luckily LastPass has a brilliant solution: Set up your account with some one-time passwords, then use them whenever you’re somewhere not entirely locked down. As soon as you log in, that password becomes invalid, and, as mentioned before, your passwords don’t fly open the open air in any case.

Bookmarklets

As we’ve previously shown, when you’re on a system where you can’t install your LastPass extension, or if you only like to occasionally fill in a form or login/password field, you can use LastPass bookmarklets to get at your stashed-away passwords. They work on nearly any browser with decent JavaScript capabilities on most any platform.

Secure Notes

Let’s say you’re looking for a universal password, PIN, and other security data database, like KeePass and its ilk. If you find LastPass convenient, you can store any data as a Secure Note, and it gets the same kind of password-protected, blindly encrypted treatment as your passwords. Helpful for those “virtual keyboard” passcodes that banks often use, telephone PIN numbers, and other non-simple security schemes.

Mobile Apps & Site

Small screens, tiny keys, and microscopic text fields are a reality of many smartphones. Even if your phone handles password input well, it’s hard to find a password syncing solution that meshes well with every browser and system (Mac users have 1Password, but that’s a very Mac-universe app). LastPass has dedicated apps, with free 14-day previews, for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Palm WebOS (phew). They generally offer both simple password retrieval databases and in-app browsers for jumping right into a site. If your phone isn’t covered by an app, or you don’t want to pay the $14/year for a premium subscription, you can hit the LastPass mobile site to get at your security goods.

That’s why I dig LastPass, and it’s why I’ll be quietly trying to move the other computers in my house and family onto that system. If you have other reasons you dig LastPass, or another web or desktop-based password management scheme, tell us all about it in the comments.




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The Easy, Any-Browser, Any-OS Password Solution [Passwords]

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