How do you secure your login information?

I recently purchased Microsoft’s USB Fingerprint Reader for my Dell desktop computer.  I was hoping to use it in place of entering in all my passwords for every site that requires a login.  First things first…I primarily use FireFox 3.  Since I first installed FF3, I’ve used it’s ‘Remember Password’ feature.  Now before you start yelling at me about the obvious lack of security, I must say that I only do it for sites that the login doesn’t really matter.  I don’t move my desktop very often and the door to my room is always locked.  I also trust my roommate. I chose Microsoft’s Fingerprint Reader because I wanted to fix this hole in my security and still have the ease of not remembering tons of login information.This site gives Microsoft’s view on this product.

Is this product a great concept and does it work well?  The answer is yes.  It makes life easy, convenient, and fairly secure (at least more secure than what I have been using).  Does this product work for me?  Absolutely not.  Microsoft in its typical fashion has refused to develop the software to support anything but Internet Explorer and regular Windows functions.  Using it to login to Windows works great.  That fact that it won’t work for FireFox…not so great.  Don’t these companies realize that users want products that will be compatible with various products??? MICROSOFT…STOP STRONGHOLDING USERS INTO USING ALL OF YOUR PRODUCTS/SOFTWARE!!! We have different needs and Microsoft cannot possibly meet all of them.  At least allow your products to work with other devices/programs.

Should you purchase this fingerprint reader…yes…only if you rely heavily on Internet Explorer or want to secure you standard Windows login information.  If you use any other program for web browsing…don’t buy this product.  Maybe one day Microsoft will realize that these restrictions place them behind all the other major players in the computing industry. *I must also mention that there is a FireFox add-on that is supposed to make the Microsoft Fingerprint Reader compatible.  It does work, but not well.  It makes the process much more difficult than it should be.

Posted by Gerald Smith – Monday, September 22, 2008