TK, does not work under WXP.

JardaH, The progams own installer and the program itself both work on XP SP3 just as well as in Vista and above... The giveawayoftheday.com wrapper would not decrypt the installer under XP SP3 suggesting that softdeluxe ltd who digitally sign the wrapper have made some changes to the wrapper and the way it communicates over the https connection (assuming the cannot decrpyt the key error is what you see under XP too)

You can install the program under vista and above and copy the program files folder over to an XP machine and add some shortcuts and it will function just don't forget to copy over the .key file in the giveaway program files folder as it contains the registration data.

TK, There was no problem with the installation, after the program started, the "first run program" popup window jumped repeatedly every second, even when it was started again. As I discovered, this was how it was run under SandBox. I tried in vmware and it works.
Still, thank you for trying to help me.

TK, you said regarding an update on the first run, "if it finds one and you update you will more than likely lose the giveaway Pro license!".

I am questioning your "more than likely" phrase. Have you actually tried this, or are you just warning people based on your opinion instead of fact?

Kurt, I am basing that statement upon several facts and forming what is called an educated guess/deduction. Some of the facts are standard Giveawayoftheday.com term of service is no automatic entitlment to future free updates (but vendors can choose to disrgard this if they want to but usually state it if they do as that is a bonus to their giveaway) another fact is that this is a protected build of the installer because it was specially built for this giveaway as it comes with what apears to be a single giveawayoftheday pro license and NO actual registration name or key for us to use to activate this or a future version. It is sort of in the vendors short sighted interest to build in a mechanisim whereby a user will be duped at a future date into invalidating the special pre-activated giveaway build by mistkenly installing an update or upgrade without thinking and thereby hopefully prompting them to buy the product because they cannot re-install the pre-licensed giveaway build because it was protected so it could only be installed during the original giveaway slot. Of course those of us that have a strong sense of fair play and morality will find that practice indefensible and against the "spirit" of giveawayoftheday.com sites intentions and boycot that sneaky vendor in the future and may provide them with negative publicity as well.

By all means ignore my exhortations to caution regarding updates offered in the future, you have the right to learn at the school of hard knocks if you so wish :)

Kurt, I believe he was referring to the giveaways from before..those that did not require a separate activation/license from the company but rather was incorporated into the GCD file..once it was installed from here, and activated, it cannot get an update..if you did get an update, the software either became a brick, or reverted back to a free edition.
The same goes for trying to re-install again, should you have an issue..you cannot.

TK, Gotta love this comment section...I had replied to Kurt before anyone else, yet it shows you responded before me..LOL
And nada was mentioned "Awaiting Moderator blah blah"

Kurt, I agree with TK. It has been standard practice not to update GAOTD offerings because apps will not update these within the free status, and if anything changes you will lose GAOTD support. So you would opt for an upgrade, not an update, and pay accordingly unless told otherwise by the developer.

Hadrianus, "free version of Secure Safe Pro 3.6"

The Pro version is not free. The free version is not a Pro version.

JJ, not gone through all your points but your point 2, you can set Secure safe to mask or unmask the passwords you type when populating the password database in the Service | options | Apearance tab dialog "Mask passwords" which is enabled by default as a more secure way to enter a passphrase but you can easily disable the security feature and make it like Fort Professional in that respect!

Chuck, if the program becomes incapable of inputting stored passphrases to certain key programs due to to changes in those programs user interfaces than you can always export all the passphrases for the programs and take them to another product or start managing them manually again instead of paying for a new update. You can also import login credentials using a CSV file too. And change the master pass-phrase if you just cannot get on with a badly thought out master passphrase and need to try something complex but more memorable like "The c@ sh@ 0n the m@!"

Chuck, SecureSafe allows read-only access to the passwords even if it is not registered, so you haven't pay if you need to reinstall it. At least, you will always be able to recover your passwords for free.

Jay Shell, so you are using the benefit of this program - a single password to remember - to find fault with the program? That's a bold move, Cotton! If you leave your house key under the mat, then you almost deserve to be broken into. Likewise if you use a simplistic password - the ONLY password you would have to remember - as your key to get in.

Most people are unaware that you can use the space character in passwords. That opens up a whole realm of possibilities. So instead of your complicated 23 character password that, admittedly, very few people would remember, I have a 24 character "password" that is a sentence that I will never forget.

Something else to keep in mind - a tool is only a useful as the person using it.

Jay Shell,
...and confidential files

The main point of my rambling should be this: you are trying to find fault with a program, based on your assumption that people are simpletons and will leave the barn door open.

Kurt, The fact is that people ARE a lot of simpletons who often write their information on the windowpane of their front door and to posit otherwise is to presume Santa Claus exists, simply because so many talk of him.
In a career of IT "crash" work, I have seen passwords written under a blotter, inside a desk drawer, on the bottom of a phone set, under a keyboard, in a rolodex (marked "PASSWORDS") and the ever-popular and totally un-discoverable .TXT file in any number of covert locations on the C:\ drive (documents, correspondence, take your pick).
Leave the door open? Mate, they tie the horse to the hitching post and then go in for breakfast.

Jay Shell, being a network engineer I can tell you that the problem with password remembering is NOT password complexity it is what I call situational memory i.e. when presented with a familiar interface and environment and having used that interface for a particular customer the brain triggers what some calls muscle memory of the password entering and one does not have to completely recall the passphrase consiously before begining to type just be familiar with that context of login entry and muscle memory takes over. One can recall quite complex character sequences that way if one has done it many times and it has become routine. It only works for a limited number of aplications and passwords so having to do the same for twenty different services or more on ones computer and some of those are only used once or twice a year would be impractical and without password managment software one is tempted to reuse passphrases across different services or use facebook login or google or twitter logins across multiple platforms to reduce the number of login credentials to have to learn which are both bad for many reasons. Re-typing a single login credential at the start of every session and only having to learn that login using muscle memory is relatively easy and after a few faltering starts most people will adapt and find how automatic that single login is regardless of how complex the passphrase has become. Bbviously unnatural characters that can only be input by using ALT+number pad keyed number are less likely to be guessed over conventional keyboard special characters but they do get in the way of muscle memory especially when facing different keyboard layouts and numb-lock default settings.

vince brennan, I too work in IT and have seen the likes of which you describe. As they say though, "Don't hate the player, hate the game."

People resort to writing their passwords down (have yet to see one on the windowpane of their front door, but perhaps you have?) is because of the absurd "rules" the industry imposes on passwords. Even the guy who suggested we use complex passwords (upper and lower case, at least one number, a special symbol or three) later said Forget it, it's not worth it.

If we, as an industry, remind users that a space character can be used, and suggest the use of lengthy yet memorable phrases or sentences as pass codes, I believe a lot of the angst towards "complex" passwords would be alleviated.

Jay Shell, create and remember good 4-word password, it will be quite good to crack and since you need just one password to remember (for the password manager), you can remember it easily. Try this tool for that: http://preshing.com/20110811/xkcd-password-generator/

The one it generated for me: "greater buy feature plastic". Change f to 4, add ! to the end and you will get even more security.

Michael, I personally would NEVER advocate using an online pass-phrase generator no matter how clever the webmaster seems to be in generating the passphrase. No visitor knows who is controlling that server at the moment of use and your wonderful supposedly secure from brute forcing or dictionary files and rainbow file attacks may be being harvested to be added to the next generation of rainbow files and dictionaries by the webmaster or by a criminal hacker that has owned the server behind the scenes or a state inteligence agency is monitoring the site or running it as a kind of honeypot for people wanting secure passphrases but don't know how to compose them themselves. Just because you suspect some people may be out to get your secrets does not always mean you are paranoid... They are out to get what traditionaly was your secrets for at least commercial and marketing purposes and that's the "good guys" like google, yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, twitter etc etc the criminals are doing it for purely self-serving commercial reasons.

With all due respect, it seems so far that most of the respondents missed the main point of weakness I pointed out: the user's own password is the only one to enter the software, and he is supposed to define it as one which, according to its composition, will be hard to crack. If his password is attacked by hackers who devote enough time to process it, it is safe to assume that at the end of the day they will crack open the password locker, in which they will find piled up together All the keys to ALL the secrets and properties of the person who trusted the software (and the said one amongst them!).

No less important: those answers ignore the great hassle of repeatedly typing the same complex password each time the user wants to enter the vault and find a password to enter any software or site. Usn't that a hassle for itself?

I did not call to refrain from using this software or any similar one. I said we have to find an easier and safer way to enter, and this (as I wrote) by fingerprinting! On the contrary, I am waiting to hear your reactions and ideas about this idea. Won't it be smarter and easier to let you enter the vault with your personal fingerprints, rather than typing time and again a long and complicated password?

Jay Shell,

Some top password managers already "let you authenticate on iOS or Android with your fingerprint or face rather than typing the master password. Most include some form of two-factor authentication, be it biometric, SMS-based, Google Authenticator, or something else entirely".

The source of the quote:
https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407168,00.asp

Regards,

consuella

vince brennan, Speak for yourself! Don't pretend to know about "people" as a whole (7 billion plus) based upon your limited experience of a few hundred or thousand customers that by needing a service technician have proven they are wanting in terms of data and computing best practice! That does not make them simpletons it makes them untrained or poorly trained. Just like you in other areas of knowledge and wisdom that you've never looked at or been educated in.

Jay Shell, if you use fingerprints instead of passphrases in most cases they can be spoofed from your fingerprints left on glasses or surfaces and printed to overlays using a 3D printer. That is a the good and nice way to defeat fingerprint protection... the not so nice way to defeat finger print protection is if the percieved value of the protected content is great enough you can be coerced or forced into using your fingerprints or even have your fingers removed and used to gain access without your assistance at all.
I'd suggest that if you have data or credentials to protect of such great importance and interest to others that you don't waste your time on a site such as this and hire some developers to design you a bespoke security system that does not expose or display its authentication method to an attacker so they don't know how to force access rights out of you. Of course I would never post publically any further ideas on how such a system could be designed and implimented as that would defeat the potential obscurity of how one authenticates in a stealthy manner.

Liviu, Does it store files too?

Chuck, yes, you can backup locally, however the goal is not to open the file locally.

Hadrianus, if you are talking about Keepass then you are wrong, I've been using it for years and there is no 40 password limit

Hadrianus, Never heard! There is only one version, free version, but you can donate. It's under GNU open source.

Jim B, it is not safe to save passwords in browser. For example, chrome protects password just by a Windows login, so any software on your computer can read all stored passwords. External password manager is a safe way to store passwords.

Jim B, There are also passwords and archives, * .tc files (containers), and "Anvide Lock Folder" ("Anvide Seal Folder").
The browser has nothing to do with it

Svend Östergaard, Does it store files too?

Jim B, It takes me less than 30 seconds to get all your stored passwords from any browser you use without any need of a password all that is required is your pc is on and access to it either via hacking or actually sitting on it no browsers are not safe.

Jim B, Probably better security.

Chuck, No, but there are good programs that do. I have a stove that I cook my food on and I have a vacuum cleaner that I clean my floors with. I would never want to get a vacuum cleaner who cooks my food too!

Svend Östergaard, You stated "all browsers have this function built in (Maxthon is best) so why have any external one?"
That is why you use an external one, to store files. To use your example you have a wallet to store your cash but you would use a safe or bank to store sensitive documents. But maybe you wouldn't and just let them lay around anywhere.

Chuck, Problems with reading comprehension?
It was Jim B who declared that! Not me!

Svend Östergaard, Well EXCUSE me for getting the wrong person's comment but I don't see how comparing a stove to a vacuum cleaner has any relationship.

Chuck, Ever heard about a metaphor?

Chuck, By the way! You will not get any more comments from me, unless it's about today's giveaway or my comment about Keepass. This is not Facebook!

Jim B, why have an external one? because most browsers and programs that store login credentials use a weak system as it is an ancillary function solely designed to make login easy and automatic not the sole reason it exists being to keep credentials safe and secure.

Svend Östergaard, you might if you had very limited living space so need devices to take on multiple functions! Or in this case the two functions were similar like storing login credentials securely and securing files securely... would be metaphorically similar to an oven and fruit dryer OR a wet and dry vaccuum cleaner... similar but different functions.