In the modern era that we live in, all people have so many devices, accounts and usernames, and each one of these has an associated password.

Some people prefer to use the same password for all accounts and usernames, pin numbers, but this is too risky since should the password of an account be exposed to a malicious program, or person, then all your usernames and passwords are compromised.

Hence, a password manager is a must. For this purpose, I'm going to talk about Password Corral, a small program that handles all your passwords and accounts.


Working with the program

This piece of software comes in a small package that takes little system resources to work. The interface isn't impressive in looks, but it's not difficult to work with, and even a beginner will be able to master its commands from the first use.

Since it will store all your passwords, keeping them in an unencrypted data file will be just as posting them in the entire neighborhood. But Password Corral features two types of encrypting: 128 bit Diamond2, and 256 bit Blowfish encrypting.

You will have to set a master password for the program, so this way you can have access to all your passwords having to know only one.

A nice feature that the program presents is the password generator. You can select both the number of characters (4 up to 20), and what characters you want to use for your passwords: numbers, letters, numbers and letters, or numbers, letters and special characters.

Entering a new password in the program's database is easy, and it's here where the Password generator steps in to help you. To each username that you input you can assign a password, a short description, a web and e-mail address and some comments, if necessary.

If you have a password that expires at a given time, you can configure the program to alert you of this situation, and you will be able to update it promptly so that no confusions take place.

You can also import and export your passwords so that if you should upgrade to a better computer, or move to a remote location, you won't lose your information. When exporting, you can choose to create an unencrypted, plain text file. The output file is not easy to comprehend: you get a stockpiled group of words, not knowing which one is the password, and which is the username, and so on.

For better password management, the application allows you to organize your information in groups (folders). And, if you want to perform a query in the database, you can use the search function, which helps you search for a keyword in the username, password, URL address, e-mail address or comments field.

The program options panel is simple, yet it provides enough settings for you to work on so that you have good control over its resources.

As a security measure, you can have the program minimize to the system tray, and ask you for the password when resuming, or you can manually lock it whenever you think so. This will make sure that no one that uses your computer has access to your passwords.

So far we've talked about how to encrypt your information, make it as secure and protected as possible. But let's see what you need to do in order to retrieve it when you need to.

The main screen only shows the short description for your entries as readable information. It also shows the rest of the details, but in an encrypted form. You can either right click an entry and copy the username or password to the clipboard, or select the Show password option from the View menu.

In order to be sure that you won't leave any information in the clipboard memory, you can have the program automatically clear out its contents when exiting the program, or do it manually by pressing F6.

You can easily create multiple accounts for the program, allowing all people that use the computer to have their own password database.


The Good

I didn't have any problem understanding how the program works. It's easy to get used to, and for its package size it offers many good things (I especially like the 256 bit encrypting).

The Bad

The interface is not the greatest I've seen so far, but its simplicity is not necessarily a bad thing, as it offers fast access to all the features.

The Truth

Password Corral is a nice little program that manages your passwords effectively. It has enough features that will make sure all your information is private both when working with the program, and after closing it. Go ahead and try this free software.

Check out the screenshots below to see the program in action: