14 DAY TRIAL // You think your identity is yours only? It could be if adequate protection is injected, but most of the times, users leave their sensitive personal details spread all over the computer. A TXT file containing your user names and passwords, a cookie left behind and even some entries in the registry can be all a malevolent agent's needs in order to steal your identity. Not to mention that the social security number is all a hacker needs in order to learn everything about you.
So I guess you'd better think again when selling your laptop and make some cleaning before giving it away. Generally, you never know who's the buyer, especially if the transaction is online. A friend of mine lost his notebook (which was password protected) and a few days later received an email to send the password.
Identity Finder is a neat solution to this thorny issue, especially when its price dropped to $24.95. The first reviewed version came with a number of issues which decreased its value, but now it is better than ever. It comes with a fresh set of options and improved performance.
There aren't too many changes in the interface and the general aspect is exactly the same. The same ease of use governs the application, so there should be no problem handling it, regardless of your computer skills.
Tools and Options menu is a new addition in main application window as well as the possibility of accessing a wizard in order to guide you through the different configuration options in order to make the search more accurate.
Identity Finder's purpose is to search in all locations of your computer for sensitive data like passwords, bank account numbers, addresses, username etc. To make a long story short it will root out every piece of information related to your identity. More than this Identity Finder will also provide you the necessary means of protecting this data for safe storage or offer to secure delete the files beyond recovery.
But these details are not all you can use the software to search for. You can also add your own information and use Identity Finder to root them out and secure them. The principle is simple: just provide the application what kind of data to focus on, supply the location and start the scan. The program will take care of the rest.
Identity Finder is extremely flexible and provides the user two ways of working with it. Immediately after launching the program you can choose to use the built-in wizard or skip directly to advanced mode and customize all the settings by yourself. The wizard permits enabling AnyFind Search, an automatic search for several identity types (credit card numbers, bank accounts, social security numbers and passwords). With regards to the internationality of the feature, you should know that personally identifiable information from several countries is available: Tax File Number in Australia, Social Insurance Number in Canada, National Insurance Number in United Kingdom and National Health Service Number in UK.
If you want to enrich the list of personal details in AnyFind Search you can add date of birth, driver's license number, personal address, passport number, telephone number, employee ID or mother's maiden name. These identity types are the presets available in the application, but you can add any other type as customization is possible, but not in this wizard.
The wizard also lets users choose search locations. Identity Finder can scan all files, hidden Web data, emails and attachments Windows Registry, Documents and Settings folder, the entire computer or in a user defined location. One piece of advice, though, if you enable Windows Registry search you should be prepared for some time killing as the operation is extremely thorough and takes a lot of time.
Advanced mode will allow more flexibility as you can add a user defined type of data, add locations, identity types and files to be ignored during the search, enable peeking inside compressed files and make the configuration settings for the entire software.
Speaking of software configuration, I noticed a lot of improvement in Identity Finder Settings menu. The four options available in the previously reviewed version have extended to a total of nine. You can control the priority of Identity Finder compared to other running processes, schedule it to run periodically, configure it to load personal information file on startup, enable the wizard on program startup and auto-recover, check for updates, show system tray icon, restrict the number of identity matches displayed. Users can also manage security settings by changing saved password for storing lists and define the password strength requirements for secure actions.
If you want to reduce the scan time you can set a maximum file size to be checked or make the application look only into items that have been modified starting with a certain date. The options in Hidden Web Data Search allow including IE and Firefox in the search process as well as searching Firefox stored passwords and Firefox form data. Unfortunately, there is no support for Opera.
Identity Finder can help you secure Internet Explorer (by enabling AutoComplete feature for forms and usernames and passwords) and shredding hidden web data (temporary Internet files, cookies, history, form data and passwords) as well as for Firefox (apply a master password and shred sensitive details). Of course you can achieve these from the web browsers themselves, but few users know exactly where to do this from.
Security is not restricted to passwords and web browsers and you can shred files or folders secure files by applying a password or store sensitive details in the built-in Password Vault. Shredding process uses US DOD 5220.22-M algorithm which is highly secure. It uses multiple levels of deletion so that the items become irretrievable.
Regarding encryption algorithm Identity Finder utilizes AES 128-bit security for Strong passwords and AES 256-bit encryption algorithm for Stronger passwords. The improvement in this sense consists in the fact that you no longer need a third party application like Winzip to extract encrypted archives as Identity Finder is perfectly capable of doing this by itself ("Open Secure File" option in Tools and Options menu)
Scheduling options come complete with all the settings you need in order to leave Identity Finder unattended and still do the job you want. Thus, besides time and date settings you can also configure its search options (enable AnyFind, choose search options and locations). In fact you can configure everything from priority level over other processes, file types and properties to the location of saving the results and the way the log file looks.
The bottom line is that Identity Finder grew a lot since the previously reviewed version and improved its set of options as well as performance. There are no crashes, and everything works almost perfect. Almost because during our testing it failed to discover a password we created, although its folder was the only location to be searched and the detail was added to unique identities list.
The Good
It is extremely easy to use and the wizard only makes your work even easier. The engine is intelligent enough look in any type of file on your computer.
Scheduling options come complete with search settings, file types to be scanned and all sorts of preferences.
Although only US DOD 5220.22-M and AES 128-bit and 256-bit security options are available for file shredding and encryption Identity Finder keeps your data secure from prying eyes.
The Bad
It failed to discover @tIu9)%jK;U password in a TXT file although it was available in Unique Identity Include List.
Windows Registry scan will take a helluva lot of time to complete. On test computer in about 2 hours the process reached only 20% so if you enable this kind of search your computer is in for an all nighter.
The Truth
The developer dropped the price with $20 and stabilized it to $24.95 and also brought lots of improvements to the feel of the application. There are very few issues to be addressed and judging by the way the developer improved the application I am sure that the next version will get rid of these mischiefs.
Note 1: The developer assured me that the password discovery issue mentioned above will be fixed with the next version of the product. Also, the application failed to discover the password because the first character was non-alphanumeric.
NOTE 2: An update later and the application has eliminated all the aforementioned issues. More than this, scan times of the registry now take much less than they used to (a few minutes are enough for completing the check). So, that tricky password mentioned in "The Bad" are of the review (@tIu9)%jK;U) is located by Identity Finder with no problems now due to an improved searching algorithm and Registry scan takes a whole lot less to complete the job then it used to (and can be configured to check common registry keys or for a full registry scan).
Identity Finder has grown to maturity and is now able to locate sensitive data on your computer by searching every nook and cranny. Your computer no longer has to pull an all nighter as scan time have been greatly improved and the accuracy of finding passwords, bank account information, etc. has increased.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
