Review: SafeWallet makes password storage pretty easy

I love password managers. When they work well, they make browsing the Web easier, faster, and more secure. And SafeWallet does, indeed, work well. It’s not perfect, but SafeWallet has become my new favorite password manager.

To get started, you simply create an account by entering your email address and selecting a password. You then setup a safety question, enter your birthdate, and you’re good to go. SafeWallet works as an extension for the Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer browsers and you can choose which ones you’d like to add during the installation.

The installation didn’t work quite as well as I’d hoped. While the Firefox and IE extensions were added automatically, I had to manually locate the Chrome extension in Chrome’s Web store and install it myself. Luckily, that process was easy.

Equally easy is surfing the Web with SafeWallet. It automatically detects most login pages and forms that you fill out and asks you if you’d like to remember that information in your SafeWallet. You can access your SafeWallet either by clicking on the icon that appears in your browser’s toolbar or by launching the program from your computer’s start menu. Both of these steps will open up the SafeWallet interface, which is attractive and easy to understand. All of the Website logins you’ve saved are listed there, and you can drag and drop them to categories such as “Business” and “Personal.” You also can mark some as Favorites, which makes it easy to find those that you use frequently.

Overall, the layout of SafeWallet is easier to browse that LastPass’s Vault, which is a bit too text-heavy for my taste. Still, I do like how LastPass lets you create your own categories for sorting all of your logins (something SafeWallet lacks).

And SafeWallet did hiccup a few times on multi-page logins, as do most password managers I’ve tested. But unlike LastPass, which managed to identify the second page of a two-page login system that my banking site uses, SafeWallet didn’t recognize either page. I had to manually add the site to my SafeWallet myself, which is simple.

I was able to forget about that minor flaw when I saw how seamlessly SafeWallet handles multiple accounts for a single site or service. I have a personal Google account and a professional Google account, and SafeWallet made it a cinch to store and use both of them.  SafeWallet’s interface lists both the name of the site and the username, making it easy to see at a glance which is which. LastPass’s Vault lists only the name of the service, making me click on each Google entry in order to see which one contains the information for my personal or work accounts.

Similarly, when you browse to the Google site, LastPass fills in the username and password fields with the login you most recently used; you have to go back to your vault in order to find the other one. SafeWallet, though, lets you select the login to use right on the Webpage itself, with a handy drop-down option that lets you make the switch. It’s incredibly handy.

So, too, is the fact that SafeWallet is now free. In a change from earlier versions, the company has decided to offer it free of charge. That includes the mobile versions, which run on iOS and Android devices. LastPass offers mobile versions, too, but only as part of its $1-per-month Premium service.

I wish SafeWallet worked more seamlessly with multi-page logins, but the rest of its features are enough to make me overlook that issue. From now on, I’m storing my logins in my SafeWallet.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor’s site, where you can download the latest version of the software.