Trend Micro DirectPass 1.0 review

The DirectPass extension worked as expected with straightforward username and password login combos, and even prompted to update its stored user profile data when a name, address and other personal information was entered on a form. This, along with details for one credit card, can then be used to auto-fill other forms as required. However, DirectPass won’t work with logins spread across two screens, where a password and other security credentials are requested only after a valid username has been entered. This means it’s no use for auto-filling most UK bank login details, for example, although the information can be copied and pasted from a DirectPass secure text note.

DirectPass also detects when a web site used for financial transactions is opened and will prompt to re-open it in its own Secure Browser that, among other things, encrypts keystrokes to foil key-logging software. However, the only UK-useful site it worked with was PayPal, and it didn’t detect any of the major online UK banks’ sites.

The Secure Browser protects against keyloggers, but only works with PayPal in the UK

The way DirectPass saves passwords is also problematic. The program only prompts to auto-fill a login when the page it was originally saved from is opened and not when a login request is made from a different URL — a common enough occurrence with Amazon, for example. Logins can still be selected manually from the saved list, but this is sorted by save date rather than alphabetically and finding one in a random list of 20 or more is a chore. The list can be sorted manually, but doing this with a few dozen passwords imported from a web browser is more tedious still.

With no apparent secure browser support for UK banks and an inability to save multi-layered logins, the fact that DirectPass can also randomly generate secure passwords and store secure notes isn’t much of a selling point — so can the free version of LastPass (www.lastpass.com), which also has more features. LastPass Premium with its comprehensive smartphone support is also cheaper at $12 (around £7.50) per year, so is a better buy.