Password managers are becoming a necessity with each day that goes by. They will help you protect the sensitive data you have stored on your computer or God knows on what. A good password manager should be easy to handle, reliable, password protected, include a password generator that is compliant with the encryption standards, have a good price and be flexible. These are the basic features a good password manager should have in my opinion.

There is a myriad of such softwares on the Internet and the small details mentioned about are the ones that make the difference. I have seen lots of freeware stuff and I must tell you that there are some winners to be out there. The passwords managers with a price are more developed than their "priceless" mates and, of course, provide you with more options.

AES Password Manager is an application especially designed to guard your sensitive data, like contacts, bank accounts, emails, web accounts, credit cards information etc. The price they are asking is not too much if you consider the options it is equipped with. $29.00 for an application that will safe keep your personal as well as business data and has a password generator that can create 10.000 characters long passwords. Pretty amazing.

The application also comes in trial version and there are no limitations. You can use all the functions of the software for a period of thirty days.

The explorer like interface will give you easy access to the sections you create or the ones that have been created by default. No matter how you organize, move, remove or rename your folders, the data the application is intended for protecting will never change. Thus, the user can store passwords, notes, credit card information, email information (username, password), bank accounts data or contacts data.

The first time you open AES Password Manager you will be asked to choose between using the default database of the application or create a new one from scratch. In the Folder list on the left there are displayed the folders for each section. The user can modify the names of the folders in any way s/he thinks suited and a very worthy to mention detail is that you can change the icons of the folders. This option is included in the context menu of the right click.

Another interesting feature is that it does not matter where you create the new folders, as you can move them afterwards to the desired location. This option is also available for the items in the folders. The only thing you should pay attention to is the type of information you want to add.

On the right, the items included in the folder you selected are shown. In order to take a quick view inside the items without opening it in editing mode, I suggest enabling the Object's Data window view (go to View menu>Pane).

User Management option lets you add new users to manage the database and invest them with certain permissions. The default user is called Administrator and can make any change in the database. Granting permissions includes updating data, inserting new data, deleting data, printing it or allowing the user to change passwords.

Edit menu brings a very interesting option which can find expired items. This function is of good use when you have an account that has already expired (web account, credit card etc.). You can use this function to clean up the database and get rid of useless items.

The Password Generator has the ability of creating a password of up to 10.000 characters. The characters can be almost any key contained by your keyboard (upper/lower case letters, numbers and special characters).

The toolbox AES Password Managers is pretty large and also includes a file wiping function. It can be configured from the General options of the application and enable the number of overwrites after the data has been deleted. This way, you can securely delete data without fearing that someone may be able to retrieve and use it against you.

Another very useful feature of the software is the SuperPaste function. It acts like a regular paste function, but it is automatic. You can store a sequence of keypresses and then reproduce it. This way you will no longer have to press the keys, just open a new form and let AES SuperPaste do the job for you.

I advise you to thoroughly read the Help file on this issue as, used incorrectly, it could result into unwanted changes on your computer. And set the time delay to an amount of time that allows you to open the document or dialog box where you want to paste the information. To be frank, it is a super easy to use tool and you already have all the presets; all you need to do is add the keys in the desired order.

The Good

AES Password Manager is a very good password managing utility that can be used by any type of user. It can store a lot of information and the backup/restore option will let you retrieve the information in case it gets lost. Also, the user can set the number of backup copies.

The flexibility of the application allows you to rename and move the folders in the Folder List. To increase security, the AES is equipped with a Lock option that allows the user to specify the amount of time after which the software should become password protected in the minimized mode.

The Bad

The Help menu should be a little more explicit. SuperPaste option could give you headaches if used incorrectly. Also, I experienced some crashes after activating SuperPaste. Part of the malfunction was due to its improper use, as I activated it and opened up Windows Start menu or some other application that had nothing to do with pasting. But still, after all the damage was done, the software would not open anymore. To make it work again, I had to perform a reinstall.

I wish the Contacts section were a little more thorough and display the name of the contacts instead of the subject, or both. This way, a number of contacts can be added with the same subject and the user will see them quicker in the folder contents window. The solution provided by the software at this stage is looking in the Object's Data window, which is a little uncomfortable.

The Truth

A very good program for securely storing your sensitive information and more. In terms of options provided the application is very good, and the price does not seem too much.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: