Ascendo DataVault Password Manager - Review 2022

Information technology's impossible to utilize a strong, unique password on every website without the help of a countersign manager. Y'all just tin can't recall dozens of passwords like z16$@RyXUL7AiSgG without assist. On the other paw, putting all your secrets in the hands of the password manager company may be worrisome. What if the visitor gets hacked, or goes rogue? With Ascendo DataVault Password Director, your passwords never go to the deject. Rather, they stay on your devices, syncing as necessary via local network or Dropbox. Still, it lacks fifty-fifty common features such as automated countersign capture and replay, and its user interface is both dated and awkward to use.

You tin install DataVault on your Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and even BlackBerry devices. You practise have to pay $9.99 for each installation, but that's a 1-time fee, non a yearly subscription. Installing information technology on one each of Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android devices would price roughly $40. For that same toll you could install Dashlane on unlimited devices, but you'd pay it every yr. Keeper costs $29.99 per year and likewise permits unlimited devices.

On Windows, DataVault's installer adds browser extensions to Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. However, the Firefox extension isn't compatible with the current version of Firefox. Strangely, it requires the Bonjour Print Services app to enable syncing with iOS devices. On kickoff launch, information technology reports that its data file is missing, asking whether you want to browse to the file location, restore from backup, or create a new data file. Once you've created the file, you're set up to get.

The programme's principal window is colorful and very decorated, prefilled with sample entries of various data types. I found it seriously awkward to use. For example, to edit an item you click the Edit toolbar push button at top left, but when you're finished editing you lot click the Save button at bottom right. In the tree view, information technology shows all existing folders, without distinguishing empty folders from closed folders that contain data. You can click to bring up a virtual keyboard, but what you lot get is the built-in Windows accessibility keyboard, and you must respond to a User Account Control prompt every fourth dimension you use it.

Ascendo DataVault Main Window

DataVault can import passwords from 17 competing products, but only four of them (1Password, KeePass, RoboForm, and SplashID) are electric current. Equally with LastPass Premium, many of the products for import are defunct or discontinued. Several are BlackBerry-specific, and one long-gone app ran on the Palm operating organization. It's a motley collection.

I too installed DataVault on a Motorola Moto G5 Plus running the latest Android. Every bit with the Windows edition, its tree view is colorful and busy, but the absence of the large, colorful toolbar icons tones information technology down pleasantly.

Capture and Replay

DataVault doesn't offer the fully automated password capture and answer plant in RoboForm, LogMeOnce Password Direction Suite Ultimate, and well-nigh other password managers. Rather, y'all enter your credentials and and so click Save Form in the browser extension. On the plus side, this manual system means that DataVault can capture even nonstandard logins.

To fill your login credentials, you navigate to the folio and click AutoFill Form in the browser extension. At present, y'all must enter your master password every time you do so, which is a total pain in the neck. My Ascendo contact says they plan to remove this requirement soon.

In testing, I found that DataVault could not capture Gmail logins. My contact explained that DataVault does handle two-page logins nether Windows and iOS, but that these logins require special treatment, and that Google's changes to the login page mean that at nowadays DataVault can't handle it.

Password Generator

When you're replacing weak passwords, it's handy to have an automatic way to generate strong ones, random collections of characters that the password director remembers for you. DataVault does offer this feature, simply its default settings yield terrible passwords. Past default, it generates passwords consisting of 8 alphabetic characters, which its ain rating system considers weak. For comparison, Password Dominate Premium defaults to 20 characters of all types, while 1Password defaults to xx alphabetic characters.

Ascendo DataVault Password Generator

You can gear up DataVault's countersign generator to create passwords equally long as 100 characters or as short as one character (though a one-graphic symbol countersign seems a bit cool). I strongly suggest you pick a reasonable length, at least 16 characters, enable use of numbers and punctuation marks, and click the push button to salvage this every bit the new default. Don't check the box to allow spaces in passwords, as many sites won't have those.

Other Data Types

DataVault can agree many types of data other than passwords. When calculation a new item, you requite it a proper name and select a category, type, and template. The inclusion of both category and type confused me. By default, the available categories are Business, Personal, and Unfiled. The merely default type is Unfiled. Fortunately, yous tin can ignore those and concentrate on choosing a template.

DataVault comes with more than two dozen templates defined. These include Bank Account, Driver License, Vehicle Data, and more than. Selecting one fills in the appropriate field names, leaving you lot to enter the corresponding values. For case, selecting Personal Contact gets you fields for Name, Phone Number, and E-mail. You can add together a note to any of these entries too.

Ascendo DataVault Data Item

If you wish, you tin define additional categories and types, though I can't see a reason to do then. More useful, possibly, is the ability to define a new template, with up to x information fields.

Keeper Password Manager & Digital Vault, LastPass, RoboForm, and most competing products let you use stored personal data to fill web forms. With DataVault, all you get is storage and syncing.

What'south Not Hither

I've noted that you lot don't get fully automated password capture and replay from DataVault, and that information technology doesn't fill web forms with personal data. Besides missing these common features, it too lacks avant-garde features found in the best competitors.

True Fundamental, Zoho Vault, Sticky Countersign, and most other competing products permit you secure your passwords with two-cistron authentication. Techniques for authentication include sending a code by SMS, facial recognition, inserting a FIDO U2F central, and more. DataVault doesn't offer two-factor authentication.

SecurityWatch

While I don't recommend carelessly sharing login credentials, at that place are times when you lot need to share. Dashlane, Keeper, LogMeOnce, and quite a few others include a mechanism for sharing login details with other users. Some let you share without making the countersign visible. At that place'due south no sharing in DataVault.

If you lot kicked the bucket today, would your heirs accept any way to access your online accounts? The best password managers include some provision for password inheritance. Typically, there's a waiting menses between requesting admission and granting the request, giving you lot fourth dimension to act if an heir jumps the gun. That's not something DataVault offers.

Not Worth It

Password managers that store your encrypted data in the cloud quite reasonably charge a yearly subscription fee; those servers aren't free! Information technology makes sense that, with no cloud storage, Ascendo DataVault Password Managing director charges just a i-fourth dimension fee. However, you lot must pay that fee for every device you employ. Sure, you can pay once and apply the product forever, but is it something y'all'd want to utilize forever? Between the awkward interface and the lack of expected features, this isn't a product I can recommend. In truth, many costless password managers are more than effective.

A password manager needs to be extremely straightforward and simple, else users will abandon information technology and go back to using "StarWars" for every password. Dashlane and Keeper Password Manager & Digital Vault both fit this profile, managing to pack in the most advanced features while retaining simplicity. These two are Editors' Choice password managers. LogMeOnce Password Management Suite Ultimate and Pasty Countersign Premium also share this laurels, though I plan to reevaluate them soon, with a focus on ease of use.