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November 17, 2005
Software you need: RoboForm
In this brief happy time between the end of the hangover inspired by last night's soccer victory, and the hangover soon to come from tonight's visit to Vue de Monde, I am taking the opportunity to start a new (ir)regular column entitled "software you need". This is where I introduce you to those litle gems of software that make my day-to-day computing experience more pleasant - they are the first installers I run on any new computer I set up.
Without further ado, introducing Roboform. Roboform is a brilliant bit of programming that fills in your web forms for you. You enter in your name, address, birth date, credit card details, etc just once into the software. Then, any time you hit a form which asks for any of these details, Roboform will offer to fill it in for you! It's amazingly clever, guessing correctly 95% of the time which information needs to go into which text box.
Furthermore, it watches as you fill in your usernames and passwords into login forms, and offers to remember them for you. To return to that login form in the future and automatically fill it in, just choose the site's name from the Roboform menu. It works on IE, Mozilla, and Firefox, and it can even be run from a USB key so you can use it on other PCs. You can protect your Roboform database with a password.
There are other form-filling options around (including the one built into Mozilla), but none are as effective as Roboform. It's free to use, unless you have a lot of logins for it to remember. The software is updated regularly - I have been using it for years and every update has been free.
Posted by at November 17, 2005 05:02 PM