What About Symantec’s Identity Safe App On Mac?

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Mac users who use Norton Internet Security for Mac do not have the feature where they can save passwords securely so the passwords can later be autofilled into various web destinations that they frequently visit.  Windows users who use Norton Internet Security do have this feature!  Just recently, I’ve found out Symantec provides free Identity Safe app in Mac App Store, and so now Mac users have the option of using this app to save and retrieve their passwords with less hassle than before.

Unfortunately, Identity Safe app seems to be pretty crude!  What I mean by this is that I think it only works with Safari web browser.  I can’t really use it with Chrome and Firefox web browser.  For an example, once installed the app, added a web destination with its proper credential, clicked on the app icon at the very top of the screen, clicked on the web destination under recent logins list, and a web destination would open in Safari web browser automatically with proper credential filled in (i.e., password and username).  Of course, Identity Safe users can click on View All Logins within the Identity Safe app to view username and password for a specific web destination, and by doing this Identity Safe users can manually copy and paste the credential into a web destination with browsers that are not supported by Identity Safe app.  This is a hassle of course!

Although I haven’t yet tried the import of logins for Safari, I’ve noticed a lot of app reviewers have complained that this app isn’t allowing to batch importing logins (i.e., can only import each login one by one as one has to approve the import for each login).  If this is true, then the whole purpose of importing logins from Safari can be rather self-defeating since it will be so cumbersome to actually import hundreds of logins one by one.  So, this is another hassle for using Identity Safe app.

Even though Symantec’s Identity Safe isn’t yet polished to my liking, I still think it does serve a purpose of safekeeping logins securely.  Nonetheless, you have to trust Symantec in order for you to trust and use Identity Safe app.  In my case, I do trust Symantec, therefore I don’t mind using this app.  In my opinion though, there might be many other password/login apps that may provide better features in safekeeping one’s logins than Identity Safe app.  Honestly though, if one doesn’t yet have a good app which helps securing logins on Mac, then I don’t see why one should not use Identity Safe app on Mac since it’s a free logins protection app from a trustworthy security company Symantec.

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