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Roboform, crippling the export function and Bits Du Jour censorship
Steven Avery:
Hi Folks,
Siber Systems from Roboform has done some things that made former customers a bit unhappy, where they felt that the terms of the purchase and licensing was unilaterally changed. We have discussed that here on some threads. This is not directly about any of that.
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With two recent Bits specials, I read up on Roboform issues and found out that, at a time that people were concerned about licensing changes, Siber changed the export function in 6.10 and 7. Apparently their export function is "Print-to-HTML" and they shortened the url. Which would be fine as an "option" but since the "Print-to-HTML" is their export facility it acts to cripple the export. ie. If another password program imports the HTML, you then have to change all the urls by hand. For this reason, you will find lots of discussion of Roboform customers actually trying to reload earlier versions of Roboform in order to have a proper export function.
And I asked about this on Bits and got a developer response that was unacceptable, and from that point on, Bits threw out two of my comments and placed my posts on moderation. (I have purchased in the past many items with them and made many comments.) It really seems like Bits, which used to have a reputation of allowing tuff questions, is now going milquetoast "protectia" for clients.
Note also that there has been an increase of what seem to be shill and social media type "rah-rah" posts from a number of vendors. (I don't blame that on Bits directly but it has weakened the whole concept.)
On the Siber issue, I managed to place a post in the little-read Bits forum (if you can see it):
Bits Du Jour
Siber-Roboform and the ethics of crippling an export function.
http://www.bitsdujour.com/view/id=18437/
From this experience, my former enthusiasm for Bits has been greatly dampened. Little reason to get involved in discussion (except for maybe the rare situation such as helping with Linkman discussion) and purchases now considered largely done.
Steven
Steven Avery:
Hi,
To show you the changes in Bits, this is the post on the current thread that was censored:
RoboForm2Go v7
http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/roboform2go-v7/
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Hi,
Danny - Top Ten Reviews is not considered reliable, since their operation is based on trying to make commissions on sales. Free software and services are ignored. As an example, LastPass is listed as at a minimum of $12 per year, but that is only the Premium service, many use the free service.
Siber - does this Roboform have a complete export facility of all the password data, including the full url ?
Steven
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UPDATE: After a long wait, possibly just their sleeping, this was approved, so we can watch for the Siber response.
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Based on such a post being censored, it is clear that Bits Du Jour will now suppress flaws and factual corrections and ethical concerns. btw, Siber's other main program is GoodSync.
Caveat emptor.
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NET HISTORY
The About.com article by Sandra Grauschopf was very helpful.
Mixed Reactions to Roboform's Version 7 Upgrade
http://contests.about.com/b/2011/03/24/roboform-users-react-angrily-to-version-7-upgrade.htm
Comment
"Version 6.9 allowed you to export your logins, passwords and URLs for import into other password applications but version 6.10 will not let you export the URL any more "
Lastpass explaining work-around
http://helpdesk.lastpass.com/getting-started/importing-from-roboform/
"Siber Systems has changed the export process in the newest version of Roboform - version 7 does not include the option to export your logins with the full site URL. Although you will still be able to export your passcards, they will not be imported to LastPass correctly. Without the full URL of the site, LastPass doesn't know where the login fields are, and autofill will likely be dysfunctional. In order to export with the full URL, you'll have to downgrade to version six."
Since LastPass is a competitor, they are being cordial and explaining this in a matter-of-fact way. It is the customers and potential customers that tell Siber that with these types of shenanigans they can not be considered an ethical company.
Oh, here is the main part of the "explanation" from Siber for crippling the export. They mangle the concepts of a print function and an export function to make excuses.
"There was a print list function in 6.9 that printed the entire login URL. Some users used this function as a quasi export function. We received numerous complaints from our users that the Print List function needed to improve, because when users printed their list of Logins, they wasted a ton of paper, and the formatting wasn't great because the login URLs were too long. So we changed the function from printing the full URL to printing the base URL. That's the only change we made. ....We made a change that was based on user feedback. We understand that not all users use our software the same exact way. It's one of the challenges of creating software. What is good for most users may not be good for all users. In this case the majority of our users like the changes, but we have not yet been able to satisfy all users."
Of course, if they wanted an option to print with a shorter url, it would have been trivially easy to give that as a configuration or run-time option. So the above is all smoke and mirrors.
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btw... currently I use LastPass for passwords, aware that they had security hits a while back and happy to change if seems appropriate (they are very good on ease of use, they seem so far to be simpler in real world usage than Keepass, a major alternative.). And I do not use a sync program, not even Dropbox, I simply occasionally copy to the cloud, since most of my work is on one puter.
Steven
cyberdiva:
Hi, Steven. Thanks for posting this frustrating exchange between you and Roboform. It makes me glad that I switched to LastPass some time ago, even though I already had a license for RF's desktop version 7. I have one question about what you said re security hits on LastPass. I only recall one, and if I remember correctly (always a question :) ), no info was compromised, but LastPass nonetheless immediately notified users about the hit and advised changing the master password. I remember doing so then. Have there been more hits?
edbro:
I own a worthless "lifetime license" for Roboform. Of course they reneged on that promise. I would never give them a cent of my money in the future. I welcome opportunities like this to point out that they are liars.
Steven Avery:
Hi cyberdiva,
I was not sure if there was one hit or two over the years, so probably one. However, you are right that it seems they handled it pretty well, and there were no known heavy-duty repercussions. Plus, I would expect they tightened their insides since then. I started using them later.
Like you, I am using LastPass. I find their interface and information very intuitive, helpful and unobstrusive, all at the same time. Conceptually I was ready to put them up against Keepass, but Keepass seems to make you do much more to actually place in, use and remember the pages properly.
Steven
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