Author Topic: Upgrading RoboForm from v6 to v7: worthwhile? (Read 78855 times)

Bamse · « **Reply #25 on:** December 17, 2010, 09:21 AM »

Give up, Lastpass use AES-256 encryption on your local hard disk so just as safe as Keepass. If browser integration means less risk of keylogger, and it does if you are paranoid or extremely careful, you can argue more. Have not checked but I would think it is possible to disable sync, is not mandatory or necessarily automated. Obviously the great idea behind their service but if you can avoid Lastpass might be acceptable?

Actually it is mandatory and I was thinking about Xmarks

Well still encrypted etc. http://helpdesk.lastpass.com/ Anyway, in case of attack main target will not be Lastpass servers but your computer but of course there should be some sort of trust towards them.

CWuestefeld · « **Reply #26 on:** December 17, 2010, 10:28 AM »

I just went back and looked at the KeePass page. It looks to me like there's a new plugin for integrating with FireFox (unfortunately it won't help for other browsers)

PassIFox extension for Firefox

Implements a transparent replacement for the built-in Firefox password storage

As I read it, this should do the integration properly. Anybody care to try (I'm going away for the next week, won't have a chance).

40hz · « **Reply #27 on:** December 17, 2010, 10:35 AM »

I'm surprised Mouser hasn't built Robo's same capabilities into FARR yet considering his wunderkind does just about everything else except slice bread and pay taxes.

I'm also surprised he continues to give away licenses for that little software gem when Siber asks for - and gets - $30+ for a less versatile product.

J-Mac · « **Reply #28 on:** December 17, 2010, 01:38 PM »

Here's an article mentioning the Roboform license model change: http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-Not-To-Change-A-Licensing-Model-171188.shtml

And here's a Roboform Purchase page from Aug 2008 care of The Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20080822215550/www.roboform.com/why-pro.html It doesn’t say "Lifetime" specifically but at the top you can see "Free Upgrades" displayed. They have always claimed free upgrades - for good. E.g., I started using RF at V.3 or 4, when it was free only. Then in 2003 I purchased two Pro licenses for V.5. All upgrades since then have been free, until now.

Jim

Darwin · « **Reply #29 on:** December 17, 2010, 02:49 PM »

Thanks for the links, Jim. I'm glad that I only paid $9.95, but sort wish I'd stuck with v. 6 out of principle. I'm pretty annoyed that as a beta tester for getting on for a year I was not notified in any way of the change in licensing policy and, petty of me to point this out, received not one cent off in recognition.

This whole thing reeks of the Collectorz fiasco from a couple of years ago...

Bamse · « **Reply #30 on:** December 17, 2010, 04:06 PM »

This mess is a good example of why an old school forum beats twitter, Facebook in communicating with customers. This almost year long beta testing would not have gone unnoticed on a forum. People would have asked questions months ago, may be it would have been possible to guide Roboform in the right direction. Tweets and here is a link to our support and here you can win an ipad on Facebook is not of much use. They are in control

rjbull · « **Reply #31 on:** December 17, 2010, 04:26 PM »

I just went back and looked at the KeePass page. It looks to me like there's a new plugin for integrating with FireFox (unfortunately it won't help for other browsers)
PassIFox extension for Firefox
-CWuestefeld (December 17, 2010, 10:28 AM)

There are also:

KeeForm - http://keepass.info/...gins.html#formfiller
Opens websites and fills in the login data automatically, for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
KeeFox - http://keepass.info/plugins.html#keefox
Bridge between KeePass and Mozilla Firefox.
KeePasser - http://keepass.info/...ugins.html#keepasser
Allows auto-typing into webforms based on URLs instead of window title. (Only for IE and Maxthon 2?)

I haven't tried any of them (yet).

Siber Systems couldn't find me as a customer, despite RoboForm 6.10.1 correctly activating! It's true I changed to a different e-mail, but they could surely have searched by other criteria.

I have now alerted Siber Systems (in the support ticket) to this thread to give them a chance to reply.

Darwin · « **Reply #32 on:** December 18, 2010, 08:44 AM »

Roboform just released its first update to v.7. I've just gone through the process of updating my two Roboform2Go installations and my desktop installation, which has prompted me to marvel again at how incredibly confusing the new licensing policy is... WTF? AFAICT, by paying $9.95 for the first year, I am entitled to use Roboform Everywhere on any machine/USB thumbdrive but standalone (IE not sync'd to the cloud) installations are $20 a pop to upgrade from 6 to 7? Seems like a no brainer to me, from a dollars and cents perspective, but it also seems too good to be true.

Incredibly shitty job of alerting customers to the changes in policy and, even worse, in explaining how their nightmare licensing scheme works!

BTW in a fit of magnanimous stupidity, and in the spirit of "supporting development", at some point early in the beta testing cycle I bought a license for Goodsync Professional. Two issues arise from this: first, when I bought the license I was under the impression that I was getting lifetime ~~updates~~ upgrades (whether this was explicitly stated somewhere or whether it was a response to a "we haven't charged for upgrades in years" blog or forum post, I can't recall) and second, are they going to pull the license switching stunt with it as well? Also to note, with the beta a freebie version of Goodsync was included with the install and was sufficient to synchronize Roboform databases between machines/drives/and the cloud, use of Roboform Everywhere now requires a paid installation of Goodsync (though I've just failed to find the reference, so I may be out to lunch).

Overall, I've worked myself into a lather... I need to calm down. If my interpretation of the Everywhere licensing model is correct, this is not the end of the world. However, I just can't help feeling pissed off at how the switch was handled. Particularly annoying is that as a beta tester I wasn't even offered the courtesy of a "heads up" e-mail about this before I upgraded the beta to the final release. The $10 is a non-issue for me (yes, Darwin is a lucky boy not to be too het up about $10), but the "principle" really rots my socks...

Edit: see strikethrough

Dormouse · « **Reply #33 on:** December 18, 2010, 09:42 AM »

AFAICT, by paying $9.95 for the first year, I am entitled to use Roboform Everywhere on any machine/USB thumbdrive but standalone (IE not sync'd to the cloud) installations are $20 a pop to upgrade from 6 to 7? Seems like a no brainer to me, from a dollars and cents perspective, but it also seems too good to be true.
-Darwin (December 18, 2010, 08:44 AM)

I'm not sure why you feel $9.95 in first year and $19.95 annually thereafter is too good to be true.

Darwin · « **Reply #34 on:** December 18, 2010, 10:40 AM »

AFAICT, by paying $9.95 for the first year, I am entitled to use Roboform Everywhere on any machine/USB thumbdrive but standalone (IE not sync'd to the cloud) installations are $20 a pop to upgrade from 6 to 7? Seems like a no brainer to me, from a dollars and cents perspective, but it also seems too good to be true.
-Darwin (December 18, 2010, 08:44 AM)

I'm not sure why you feel $9.95 in first year and $19.95 annually thereafter is too good to be true.
-Dormouse (December 18, 2010, 09:42 AM)

I don't. But in the context of having two Roboform2Go licenses and 5 Desktop licenses, $9.95 to keep all of them up to date vs. $20 to upgrade each is a bargain!

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #35 on:** December 18, 2010, 11:45 AM »

It's called taking people hostage:

Sell a product with free lifetime upgrades/updates
Promote widely and get millions of people hooked in to the product
Change the licensing model
Blackmail people into coughing up to keep access to their passwords.

It is blackmail because whilst you can carry on using version 6 you can guarantee that next time Firefox is updated v. 6 will be broken and how long before it starts working with other supported browsers.

Personally I have hundreds or passwords (pretty much all randomly generated and complex) and moving to another app is not really an option now unless there is a totally foolproof import option.

I have the choice - cough up or suffer enormous amounts of inconvenience. That is called blackmail pure and simple.

If they want to change the licensing model that is fine but they entered into a contract with their current customer base which they should honour. Someone will take them to court at some point - let's start a class action!

Personally I have no interest whatsoever storing my passwords on their servers - and after this can they really be trusted ... they could just as easily change the confidentiality agreement in the future!

J-Mac · « **Reply #36 on:** December 18, 2010, 12:25 PM »

Well, the server concern might keep you from LastPass then Carol. But in case you decide to try it anyway it is not difficult to move the logins from Roboform to LastPass. You use the Print List (Full URLs) in Roboform, open the resulting file in a text editor and paste that into LastPass's Import form tool. You have to do the logins separate from the Safe Notes. Make sure to export the list in a readable format also (from RF) so if you see any items that didn't hit the correct fields in LastPass - occasionally custom notes - and then you can edit the few cards that need it. I had over 700 logins in Roboform so just to be certain I broke mine down into blocks of 200, as some folks had problems with large numbers of logins importing. However LastPass claims they have solved any such issues, though I haven't tried again.

Worth a try if you really don?t want to pay Roboform more cash.

Jim

Cloq · « **Reply #37 on:** December 18, 2010, 12:28 PM »

Has anyone noticed if they had a "free" roboform everywhere license when they went to upgrade using their name and existing order?

When I went to the "upgrade" purchase page, I noticed I had 1 roboform everywhere license ... didn't see anything about it expiring (though I haven't installed the app, still using roboform 6 and 2go 6).

I don't plan on "upgrading" anytime soon. Siber Systems should do the right thing and grandfather in existing customers with unlimited upgrade policy for any existing licenses.

My fear is that Firefox 4 or with any new browser, V6 will be incompatible..

Bamse · « **Reply #38 on:** December 18, 2010, 03:46 PM »

No it cost money here. Roboform Online was free, Roboform Everywhere not.

I have not tired latest 7 but one of the improvements is Goodsync has become part of Roboform. Should no longer be needed to sync, happened month ago. If that has also changed Im starting to think they really are truly idiots and not just idiots in the sense they have evaluated market/customer base with a calculator, figured how to squeeze most $$$ out of it.

Import from Roboform is a build-in feature of Lastpass, also instructions. If worried check their forum http://forums.lastpass.com/ for bugs. I imported at least 200+ in one go. I am sure someone has already made posts in Feature Request section about how much it suck Lastpass either has 1 single button or 1 wide toolbar. No option of placing buttons individually, next to address bar or where ever. If used to that there could be a problem. Optional entries in right click menu does not help much. Am reminded I did not dump Roboform because it is no good, 7 experience was nice and smooth until their license tricks.

mwb1100 · « **Reply #39 on:** December 19, 2010, 07:04 PM »

Does anyone have experience with 'Clipperz' (http://www.clipperz.com/)?

It's an online password storage system like LastPass (at least to some degree - since I haven't use either for more than 5 minutes, there are probably some significant differences).

I like the idea of being able to get to my stuff from anywhere over the Internet, but I'm a little concerned about trusting my stuff to an online entity (even if the vendor is on the up-and-up and is trying to do everything right, if they become a target of criminals, who knows what little mistake can cause the exposure of my data?) Anyway, Clipperz has some attraction to me in that it's open source, so I can take their PHP files and drop it on any hosting service and have my own private setup for this.

From my brief look, it appears to use client-side JavaScript crypto to encrypt your data, and embeds the encrypted database into the page when you log on. This also lets Clipperz have a feature where it'll produce an HTML file with the encrypted database and the JavaScript that can decrypt it (after the master password is provided) so you can have a read-only copy locally (or on a USB stick). With this, if you don't want this data on the Internet at all, you wouldn't necessarily need to even have the PHP webserver accessible on the big Internet - you'd just need a copy accessible on your local home network (I'm not sure if the Clipperz PHP files will run on a Windows webserver, or if it needs/prefers Linux).

I have no idea how well it manages auto logon to websites, but I'm not particularly interested in that - copy-n-paste of credentials will work well enough for me.

It's probably not quite as easy as I might be thinking, but I'm wondering if anyone has any experience (or even no-experience, but opinions) with this stuff.

J-Mac · « **Reply #40 on:** December 19, 2010, 09:35 PM »

I tried Clipperz about a year and a half ago, before I went with LastPass. It wasn’t that bad; worked OK on a lot of sites but had trouble with more than I expected. And the development, while steady, wasn’t moving along very fast. I made a number of suggestions and while the developer seemed receptive it will take a long time to build it up to where it needs to be IMO. Seems like a one-person show almost. LastPass was more advanced and covered more pages at that time.

Jim

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #41 on:** December 20, 2010, 03:39 PM »

Import from Roboform is a build-in feature of Lastpass, also instructions. If worried check their forum http://forums.lastpass.com/ for bugs.
-Bamse (December 18, 2010, 03:46 PM)

Trying lastpass (alongside RoboForm 6).

Whilst I am initially quite impressed with LastPass there are a couple of issues:

imported just over 1000 RoboForm logins - all imported with issue BUT it doesn't always match fields correctly when filling a form which is a PITA (ie. it imports complete roboform logins but doesn't always configure them correctly for use).
I am a little concerned that you are relying on their server being up and running 24/7/365 to ensure you can use randomly generate passwords
Lastpass export to CSV is useful but doesn't seem toe export everything (I can find note or identities - although I am sure they are there somewhere!)

I think if I was starting from scratch LastPass would be nearly ideal but as a move from RoboForm there are still some gremlins.

Anyone know an easy (and multi browser) desktop app that allows import of Robofrom and works entirely on the PC?

Beth UK · « **Reply #42 on:** December 20, 2010, 04:47 PM »

Anyone know an easy (and multi browser) desktop app that allows import of Robofrom and works entirely on the PC?
-Carol Haynes (December 20, 2010, 03:39 PM)

I agree that lastpass is a bit buggy in places - still purchased the premium package on a whim ($12, and then you get to use a USB 'key' that adds in a layer of security) in an effort to find an alternative to Roboform. I mentioned earlier that Password Depot is quite decent (though not perfect) as a desktop app. I don't know if it imports Roboform passwords though it says it imports .csv and .xml (never tried).

40hz · « **Reply #43 on:** December 20, 2010, 05:39 PM »

...imported just over 1000 RoboForm logins - all imported with issue BUT it doesn't always match fields correctly when filling a form which is a PITA (ie. it imports complete roboform logins but doesn't always configure them correctly for use).[/li][/list]

-Carol Haynes (December 20, 2010, 03:39 PM)

I've yet to find any CSV transfer that went completely smoothly.

Any time I do a massive import project I'll always pass the CSV file through Excel and do some manual housekeeping first.

It's a lot easier to make sure the field sequence is correct for all records since the oddballs and singletons stick out like a sore digit and are easier to fix. Or at least it's easier than paging through 1K worth of record pages and fixing them one by one. You can also do some format fixes and massive search & replaces if you need to. I'll also usually cut and paste columns to match the default field sequence in whatever I'm importing to rather than play mapping games with the field names. Anything to minimize bad surprises.

And I bet you already do all that, right?

rjbull · « **Reply #44 on:** December 21, 2010, 03:02 PM »

I mentioned earlier that Password Depot is quite decent (though not perfect) as a desktop app.
-Beth UK (December 20, 2010, 04:47 PM)

Could you expand on Password Depot, please?

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #45 on:** December 21, 2010, 03:03 PM »

Roboform > Lastpass isn't a CSV import unfortunately - it is an HTML file.

Cloq · « **Reply #46 on:** December 21, 2010, 07:28 PM »

I have sent my "plea" to Siber Systems asking if they will honor their "free" upgrades to existing customers prior to v.7.

I haven't seen anything official from them in regards to old customers who purchased software in good faith after experiencing what the product(s) does and "free" upgrades incentive.

I understand that "free" upgrades isn't a sustainable system but please think about your existing customers, at least grandfather in existing customers, make it time limited even (assuming company sent an email out saying something like new license change, please respond by x date to keep your old license system active).

Wonder if Siber Systems hosts an official forum ... hah! that would be a riot.

Cloq · « **Reply #47 on:** December 22, 2010, 07:40 AM »

Official Answer from Siber System:
=----------------------------------------------------------------------------------=

" RoboForm ver 6 is still not requiring additional payments
and you can use it without any hindrance

RF ver 7 is a MAJOR upgrade and as such it requires new payment.

this is our 1st major upgrade in 6 years "

=----------------------------------------------------------------------------------=

Sooo... v2 thru v6 were just bug fixes?? umm.. dang.. I know something is wrong.. just not sure what..

Darwin · « **Reply #48 on:** December 22, 2010, 08:22 AM »

As documented above, I've paid the $9.95 to upgrade to Roboform Everywhere (though, again, at the time I really didn't know what I was upgrading to or for or why). I'm "sort of" glad that I did because I have a year to see what pans out and to look for alternatives. I don't use Firefox so going back to v.6 is always an option for me. I now own a Windows phone and would like to use Roboform on it as well. If over the coming year Siber systems gets an update to their Windows Mobile version that runs on WP7, I might stick with Roboform.

However, to stress this point:

I am seriously unimpressed with how this was handled and with the responses that I've seen from Siber Systems thus far. Roboform is ABSOLUTELY indispensible to me (I have 650 passcards that, as Carol's experiements show, will be VERY difficult and time consuming to transfer), so I can't afford to switch without being sure that its replacement will do the job. Ultimately, it's all about transparency - I don't mind paying a yearly fee - this was handled badly.

Bamse · « **Reply #49 on:** December 22, 2010, 08:31 AM »

It is about money. Make upgrading to 7 free for <1 year old licenses and affordable for the rest, lets say 10-15$, and there would not be so many complaints. Their argument about much improved product would be heard and acknowledged. New business model would not be praised but accepted. There are not that many relevant alternatives to start with. Since they are idiots they dont understand. But of course if majority are sheeps with money or caught in a corner with 100s of passcards they might go, look at our sales before calling us idiots! Our tactic of keeping info to our self until the last moment has paid off.

My 2 licenses will not be used again but I still think Roboform is the best tool for this job. Lastpass is ok and will probably improve in a flash but I am annoyed about having to switch. Mostly based on principles of not dealing with ##%&