Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Software evaluation: now we have to watch out for license tokens!

[See the update -- 1Password changed their policy today!]

I was read to buy 1Password. I clicked to purchase, and discovered 1Password uses license tokens!

Damn.

I'd never have invested in testing the product if I'd known that. These encrypted license tokens are a pain to manage and store. I want nothing to do with 'em. Mercifully, they're not too common ... yet.

So now I'm back looking for an iPhone password management solution. Maybe FileMaker will deliver Bento/iPhone with encryption and I won't have to bother with a dedicated app.

I'll try to avoid this mistake again. From now on, I'll walk through the purchase process before testing a product to avoid an entire class of nasty surprises.

Update 9/3/08: To be fair to 1Password, I went to the trouble of writing an email so they'd know this was a problem for one customer. They wrote back and said something like "yeah, you're right, as of today registration gets you a regular registration number". So they'd been hearing this was a problem. I'll download the new version and register tonight.

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