In these days of laptop theft, online shopping, share houses, numerous passwords and general paranoia, it seems like a great time to road test a program like Roboform. If nothing else, if you spend half your life either on the computer or online, Roboform can make that time easier.

Roboform is a program designed to protect all of your sensitive information under one master password. Easy to set up and run, it’s an absolute wonder to use and I don’t know how I ever lived without it. To download the program I went to Roboform.com. To activate it, I put in my name, order number and pressed [submit]. To use, Roboform very kindly provided me with a very distinctive green man/blob with cool shades to sit at the bottom right of my screen, and tool bar on my upper left. Click on the little green man/blob thing and the pop-up menu is very easy to follow, especially if you’ve read the instructions.

Roboform stores your important information in 3 different ways. Your various passwords for email, social networking sites and other websites all get saved in a folder called Passcards. Your personal details (name, company name, address and credit card number) get saved in another folder called Identities. The third folder, called Safenotes, holds other snippets of information, like your ATM number or the security code for your online banking. To access all this information is as easy as logging into Roboform.

So you’ve downloaded Roboform, and its loaded up with the kind of information you wouldn’t want falling into the wrong hands, but how do you use it? To access your websites which needs passwords you log into Roboform using the master password and Roboform will then log you (on your request) into your other websites. The one danger here is that you will forget all of your passwords! However if you really need to remember them there is an edit facility which allows you to view them all.

You can also use Roboform to fill out forms online. This is very useful if you spend endless days logging into networking groups, ordering online, or filling out competitions or surveys. Use Roboform to create an identity (or two) with all the relevant details needed. When confronted with a form, ask Roboform to fill it out and it will be done. I first tried it on an online lingerie shop I was browsing. I wasn’t even sure if I actually wanted to buy anything, but after Roboform had sorted everything out for me I kinda felt obliged. Roboform could be dangerous if you’re addicted to online shopping.... but the lingerie was very nice.

Other functions of Roboform are the bookmarking and managing of pages, a search function which uses yahoo, ebay and roboform files. It also has a highlighting function, allowing you to highlight relevant words or phrases on a page. Roboform can also generate passwords if you’re rubbish at making your own, or allow you to back up all of your information into a file on your computer.

The most amazing thing about Roboform is that you can use it to access your information from other computers, even if they don’t have Roboform. Roboform is also compatible with Chrome, Firefox and Linux. The one thing that must be remembered is that the master password for Roboform is irretrievable if forgotten. I’ve chosen something so hilarious I’d probably need a lobotomy to forget, but if you don’t have something eternally memorable please write it down somewhere safe.

I must say I’m a huge fan of Roboform now and use it every day. So far I haven’t found got any criticisms of the site which is a good thing, as I usually find something to whinge about pretty fast. I even like the little green blob/man thing. 10/10 until further notice.

As for the RRP, you can download a free version (limited to 10 Passcards) or buy RoboForm Pro (unlimited passcards; £19.99) from roboform.com

Once you have it (either free or Pro), you can also try out the new online version at https://online.roboform.com