Robo Form Tips and Tricks

If you're a Robo Form user then you already know its value and spare a lot of time by filling forms and logins automatically. But there are some options that allow you to get the best out of Robo Form, and it would be pitty not to use them.
Here are several tips on using Robo Form, that helped me improve its usability:

1. Keyboard shortcuts. If you don't use them yet, you should start to do so. Of course you don't need all of them, but some turn out to be very useful for me, like: Fill & Submit (shortcut Alt+Z, it will fill the login details automatically and submit them), Save Forms (shortcut Alt+[, if you're filling a form/login for the first time you can use this shortcut to save the details if Robo Form doesn't ask you to do that) and My Identity (shortcut Alt + 1-9, which will fill the current form with the details saved in the identity that you choose).
   
   


2. Set as Default option. It happens usually that for the same site you have several logins, for instance for Yahoo you have 4 email accounts and you saved the logins for them all, but you use one of them more often. In this case you can set that passcard to be the default one, so when you'll click on the matching passcards tab that login will be entered automatically. To set one passcard as default, visit the website that you have several entries for (Yahoo as an example), wait until the matching passcards appear, hover with the mouse, right click the one you want to save as default and select that option, just like you see in the image below. From now on whenever you'll click on that matching passcards button the default login will be entered.
   
   


3. Passcard shortcut to desktop. If you have several passcards that you use more often you can create a shortcut for each of them on your desktop. However having to many it's not recommended, but 2-3 shorcuts to your desktop are useful. To create a shortcut just right click a passcard and select Add Shortcut To->Desktop (if you have enough space you can add it to the quick launch too).
   
   Once the shorcut is saved on your desktop, you can simply double click it and it will open the webpage, fill in the logins and submit it, so it acts like a bookmark too.
   
   One more thing there would be the feature that I marked in the previous image, Fill Empty fields only. This is particullary useful when you're using a browser such as FireFox that saves too the information you fill in. Thus, there's no need to click on the Robo Form to fill a field that's already been filled.
   


4. Fill and Submit as default action. A normal login page will have a Username (email address) field, a Password field and a Submit button. By default when you'll click on the matching passcard in Robo Form it will only fill your details in, and you will have to click on Submit. There is however an option in Robo Form that once enabled it will fill in and "click" on the Submit button.
   
   


5. Autofill web forms. By default when you'll get to a new web form Robo Form will not prompt any window to fill in anything. There is an option that you can check to have Robo Form prompt a window to fill in details from your identities and/or passcards to a new web form. This is useful with forms that are similar (like forum registrations, sweepstakes forms).
   
   


6. Recently used passcards/safenotes. I have many passcards and safenotes, and usually in a day I'll use at most 8-10 logins (at home). So those are saved in a recently used list that you can easily access if you press the Logins/Safenotes button in the Robo Form toolbar. Instead of going through all the logins alphabetically you can just use the entry from the recently used list.
   
   


7. Robo Form on USB. Pass-2-Go is the portable version of Robo Form. It acts just like RoboForm does, but you install it on a USB drive and use it from there. It lets you use someone else's PC and not have to remember your passwords because everything stays on the USB drive, so there's never a risk of anyone on the host PC seeing them, plus that if you lose the USB drive everything is encrypted and nobody will be able to read the data without the proper password. Plus that if you don't have a USB drive you can order one from Robo Form too.
   
   


8. Always on top. Don't blush yet, this is an option in Robo Form. I love Opera, but one of the things that I miss in it is the fact that I cannot use Robo Form, and let's face it that the Wand option in Opera is not very good. This is why I came up with a compromise, to use a Passcard editor window allways on top of all other windows when browsing with Opera. I can simply copy the username/password by clicking on the small icon in front of each field stored in Robo Form, and paste it in the Opera fields. It's annoying sometimes but you get used to it.
   
   

These are the tips that I could think for now. If you have others, send them in to spuby2000@gmail.com

Download the latest version here (approx. 2MB): Robo Form 6.6.5
Download portable version of Robo Form from here: Pass 2 Go 6.6.5

Robo Form Adapter for FireFox

Robo Form works with many browsers, and installing the Robo Form toolbar in those browsers resumes to installing a simple executable file. This tutorial focuses on the installation of the Robo Form adapter in FireFox, but for other browsers the principle is the same.

First of all, you need to download a file called Universal Adapter Installer. After the download finishes, run the Robo Form adapter setup by double clicking on it. A wizard will start guiding you through the installation process.



If the setup detects the FireFox version that you have installed, it will be displayed in the These supported browsers are auto-detected on your computer field, as you can see in the image above (FireFox 1.5 was detected). If no browsers are detected, but you know exactly what you have installed, you can check the Manual Adapter Setup option.
A confirmation window will appear saying that you need to know exactly what browser you have installed otherwise the Robo Form toolbar will not work correctly.



After you click Yes on the confirmation window, another one will appear and you will be able to select from a drop down box the browser that you are installing Robo Form for. This setup can be used for uninstallation of the Robo Form adapter, the difference being that in this step you would have to select the Uninstall button. However, to continue with the installation, select as action Install and then click Ok.



After this step the actual installation will start. If you have FireFox opened, it will prompt you to install roboform-firefox-1.5.xpi. This is a FireFox extension that the Robo Form adapter setup copied in the temporary folder and executed. When the Install button is not greyed out (takes about 4 seconds) click it to complete the installation of the Robo Form extension.



Meantime, the Robo Form adapter setup wizard is not closed, it pops up a window telling you what to do, complete the installation in browsers, close the browsers and click the Ok button of that window.



After you clicked the Ok button in the last message from the adapter setup, open FireFox. If everything went well you will be able to see the Robo Form toolbar at the top of the browser.



And this is it. You have successfully installed the Robo Form toolbar in FireFox.

There is another way for doing this installation. You can open FireFox, click on Tools->Extensions and then on Get More Extensions. This will open a webpage where you can find lots of FireFox extensions. Do a search for Robo Form and you should be able to find the appropriate extension. Scroll down the page until you see the Install Now button and click on it.



After you click on that, a progress window will show you how the extension is being downloaded.



After that is finished, you will be able to install the extension and that's it. Restart FireFox to have the Robo Form toolbar displayed.

Download the latest version here (approx. 2MB): Robo Form 6.6.5
Download portable version of Robo Form from here: Pass 2 Go 6.6.5
Download FireFox: Fire Fox 1.5.0.1

RoboForm discount code

A $10 discount code is available for ordering Robo Form Pro or other products from Siber System. The discount is valid only if your income for 2005 was less than $20,000 (so for instance if you had a monthly income of up to $1,666 you will qualify for the discount). When you are completing the purchase order with this discount code, you certify the fact that your declaration is valid and if you will be asked to send papers to demonstrate this you are obligated to.

This is a step by step process to order Robo Form Pro with a discount code (you can order other products too and still get the $10 discount from the total amount).
First go to the Robo Form buy now page.



Automatically 1 license of Robo Form Pro will be added to your shopping cart. Do not click on Continue yet. Go to the Discount Code (optional) field that's at the bottom of the ordering page and enter the discount code SNC just like you see on the image above. The price now it's still $29.95, but if you click on the Update button you should see the price dropping to $19.95.



The discount of $10 should be now displayed as -10.00. After you see that, click on Continue to go to the next step.



Here you can select a payment method (credit card, paypal transfer, check) and review your order (see again if the $10.00 is displayed). After that click on Checkout to enter your payment details and complete the order.



This final step completes when you enter the correct details and click on Submit.
If you want to test Robo Form before you buy it download it here: Robo Form 6.6.5
It also has a portable solution: Pass 2 Go 6.6.5

[update]
I've found 2 more Robo Form coupon codes. One gives a discount of $3 and the other a discount for $10 (for this one you don't need to prove that you have a low income).

For $3 off, use the coupon code CORTS and when you click on Update you should see the following text: SW User Group Conference discount is applied: -3.00


To get $10 off, use the coupon code INP and when you click on Update make sure the following text is displayed: InfoPackets discount is applied: -10.00

[Update] There's a new roboform coupon code as mentioned in the comments, if you use NVER1 you will get 20% off - good to hear about this new roboform discount
[Update] Other Robo Form discount codes:
GOOG1 - 20% discount off your Roboform purchase (via Google advertising)
STRV4 - 20% discount off your Roboform purchase
XMAS1 - 20% discount off your Roboform purchase
SDGCS - 20% discount off GoodSync Professional orders

Robo Form 6.6.5 and AutoSave tip

Robo Form 6.6.5 was released today. On their news section there is only one mention regarding changes in this version: Added option Clear Generated Passwords on Logoff. Probably they also fixed a couple of minor bugs, beside the change mentioned above.



Download the latest version here (approx. 2MB): Robo Form 6.6.5
Download portable version of Robo Form from here: Pass 2 Go 6.6.5

The Robo Form AutoSave dialog appears each time when you visit a website for the first time and enter some login detail. It will prompt if you want to save that login to your passcards for later use. You can either save or cancel it (if you cancel you will still continue to the login page).



However, if you are creating a new account on a website, ususally these forms contain a Password and Repeat Password field. Robo Form will detect that and will tell you that it cannot save the login and in order to have a passcard for this stored you will need to finish creating the account, logout from that website and re-login. When you re-login you will click on the Save button for the AutoSave window.

Is Robo Form safe?

Robo Form is well-behaved: NO ADWARE, NO SPYWARE. This is a statement from their website and I back that up 100%. I've been using Robo Form for a long time and I've scanned and tested my computer a lot and Robo Form indeed behaves very well.
I've enabled the Robo Form tray icon and also the Robo Form toolbar, and I scanned my computer for viruses, adaware/spyware and monitored all the time using the firewall.

The adaware/spyware scan. For this purpose I've used the latest version of Lavasoft AdAware SE Personal, Build 1.06r1, with the database updated to the version dated 03.02.2006. The result was no spyware or adaware threats detected, as you can see in the image below (and you can also see the Robo Form toolbar enabled)



The virus scan test. For this I used NOD32, with an updated database from 03.02.2006. I first scanned the directory where Robo Form installs by default (Program Files\Siber Systems\AI RoboForm\) and after that the entire partition. As expected, no threats were detected.



The firewall test. I always have a firewall started and monitoring the activity. Since the day I installed Robo Form until now, there was no report of it trying to communicate through the web. The firewall I use is McAfee Personal Firewall 5. Even when I enable the tray icon, the process (called RoboTaskBarIcon.exe) does not try to connect to the Internet. The only communication is done via the toolbar, when Robo Form is able to detect new versions of it on the sites that are visited. It will prompt this way a window asking if you want to update to the latest version or not. But Robo Form does not send anything from your computer, so the passcards and other personal data are safe.





The reliability test. Robo Form is developed and marketed by Siber Systems Inc, a Virginia (US) corporation, in business since 1997. Robo Form is also part of the BBBOnLine Reliability program. What is BBB?
The BBB is a leader in public services related to ethical business practices and dispute resolution. It is our passion to promote honesty and integrity in the marketplace. We are committed to and guided by trust, respect and fairness. Our aim is to help make the local community a better place in which we can all live, work and prosper.



What this all means to the end-user, is that if you report a problem regarding their sales practice or anything related to the credibility of Robo Form and Siber System, they are obligated to investigate and solve it.
Beside this, Robo Form als has a 30 day money back guarantee, so if you are not satisfied with it you can request your money back.

If you are still not convinced that Robo Form is safe, just do a search online and see how many respected publications recommend it (The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNET, MorningStar). If there was the smallest doubt about the safety of Robo Form it would have been reported until now.

That's about it. If you have questions send an email to spuby2000@gmail.com and I'll try to answer it.

Download the latest version here (approx. 2MB): Robo Form 6.6.4
Download portable version of Robo Form from here: Pass 2 Go 6.6.4

Backup Robo Form data

After using Robo Form for a while, the passcards list tends to increase and also safenotes, identities or bookmarks. So, if something would happen to your hard drive it would be pitty to lose the Robo Form data. Thus, backing up your data is important. For this tutorial I backed up on the same hard drive, but I recommend backing up to an external hard disk or USB drive (in an encrypted form).

First step in backing up is opening the Options page. Either from the Robo Form tray icon or the RoboForm button in your browser toolbar, click on Options:



Once that Options window is opened, click on the User Data tab. From those buttons click on Backup... to start the backup wizard, just like you see below.



What will happen next is that you'll get a window to browse to a folder where you want to backup your data. For better handling just create a new folder and name it in a manner that will allow you to remember what it contains (for instance Robo_Form_backup_01012006). What Robo Form does is a mirror backup, meaning an exact copy of the data. It would be great if they would integrate incremental backup and automatic folder naming.



Once you click on the Ok button, you'll get a confirmation window asking you to confirm the files transfer. Click on Ok to start the actual backup process.



If everything went well you will get a Backup Complete message. Click Ok to close it.



Of course the wisest thing would be to also manually check if everything went well and that you have your Robo Form data backed up. For that open Windows Explorer (or Total Commander) and go to the folder you created for this backup. You should see a list with files having the extensions: .rfp (roboform passcard), .rfn (roboform safenotes), .rft (roboform identities) and .rfo (roboform options files):



That's about it. If you have questions send an email to spuby2000@gmail.com and I'll try to answer it.

Download the latest version here (approx. 2MB): Robo Form 6.6.4
Download portable version of Robo Form from here: Pass 2 Go 6.6.4

Robo Form 6.6.4 and search box tips

Robo Form 6.6.4 was recently released. On their news section there aren't any new changes added so I suppose this was only a maintenance release (they fixed some minor bugs). You can download this version here: Robo Form 6.6.4

Robo Form searchbox is an easy way to search several search engines without opening them directly. First of all, it will detect when you do a search on Google for instance, and pop-up a window to announce you that an easier way is to use the Robo Form search box.



So, if you write some text down in the Robo Form search box, you can press Enter to perform that search. The only thing is that when first used, this has Yahoo selected as the main search engine and also searches in your Robo Form 6.6.4 data for similar names.



So, if you want to change the default search engine to a more popular one (Google), either click on that Customize Search Box link or go to Robo Form Options->Search. In here you can change the main search engine by selecting Google. If you want to keep more search engines, use the Move Up button to move the search engine that you use more first, and also select the other ones that you want (you can choose yahoo, msn, ebay ...). The thing is that if you have more selected, when you'll enter a search query and press Enter, you will use the first one in list (except if you press the assigned keyboard button).



You also have the option to add a new search engine to that list. Also, your search history will be kept (by default the last 28 queries).

Download the latest version here (approx. 2MB): Robo Form 6.6.4
Download portable version of Robo Form from here: Pass 2 Go 6.6.4

Robo Form integration and interface

As stated on their website, Robo Form works best with IE 5.0, IE 5.5 and IE 6.0. IE6 is the recommended browser to use with Robo Form. Latest Service Packs and Security Patches must be installed for all IE browsers.
I use it mainly with Maxthon, a popular browser that uses the IE core, thus the integration is similar to the IE one, meaning you get a "genuine" Robo Form toolbar.



The most used button (by me) is the Logins button. Because instead of browsing to Yahoo for instance, I just click on Logins and select Yahoo and it will automatically go to the website and fill in the login details. So it works as a combination of bookmark and password manager. When you visit websites that you have saved login details for, you'll see the Passcards button automatically displaying the login details that you saved previously for it. If the page is new, usually after you enter the login details on the page and click on Submit (example), Robo Form will pop-up a window asking if you want to save the passcard.

Back to the Robo Form toolbar that is integrated in the browser, if you right click on the RoboForm button, you get a menu to further customize the way Robo Form behaves.



Robo Form installs also a tray icon. Right clicking on that you get about the same option, except that you also have the option to Show Toolbar, in case it's not integrated already on the browser. While the browser toolbar fills in information on webpages you visit, the Robo Form tray icon remembers and fills in the information if the toolbar is disabled.



The Robo Form toolbar is customizable. Just right click on it and you will be able choose the way buttons are displayed (with or without text) and to customize the buttons that appear. Thus, if you don't want to have a crowded toolbar you can only keep your most used buttons:



To have a button removed from the toolbar, select it from the Current Toolbar Buttons and click on Remove. In the same manner, add buttons to the toolbar by selecting them in the left window and clicking on Add. Reset brings you to the default options.

Still on the integration and appearance of Robo Form, you can install and use it in several languages: English, Arabic, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, Finnish, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (BR), Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian. Just visit their Languages page and click on the appropriate link.

Robo Form has also an auto-update option, and automatically monitors their web site for new versions and it will offer you the option of upgrading when a new version is released.

Robo Form integrates also in the popular FireFox and in the Avant browser. Pitty that it doesn't integrate in Opera and Safari (Apple). Other important browsers supported by Robo Form: AOL, MSN, Mozilla, FireFox, Netscape, Avant, MaxThon, NetCaptor, Slim. To be able to integrate it into some of these browsers (like FireFox), you need to download and install an additional universal adapter.

Of course this means you have to have the main Robo Form application installed.
Download the latest version here (approx. 2MB): Robo Form 6.6.3
Download portable version of Robo Form from here: Pass 2 Go 6.6.3

Robo Form Freeware vs Trial vs Pro

Robo Form has a freeware and a paid version too (called Robo Form Pro). Now, when you first download and install Robo Form you actually have installed the professional version, and have a 30 day trial version. After those 30 days, you will be able to either pay and upgrade to Robo Form Pro, or don't pay and use the freeware version.

So what differences are between these editions? Here is a list of features for each edition:

Robo Form 30-day trial:

• Business/Government Use: Allowed


• Number of Passcards: Unlimited


• Number of Identities: Unlimited


• Tab Instances in Identity: Limited to 3


• Custom Fields in Identity: Limited to 3


• Support: Online Only

Robo Form Freeware:

• Business/Government Use: Not Allowed


• Number of Passcards: Limited to 10


• Number of Identities: Limited to 2


• Tab Instances in Identity: Limited to 3


• Custom Fields in Identity: Limited to 3


• Support: Online Only

Robo Form Professional:

• Business/Government Use: Allowed


• Number of Passcards: Unlimited


• Number of Identities: Unlimited


• Tab Instances in Identity: Unlimited


• Custom Fields in Identity: Unlimited


• Support: Online Only

So, the bad part is that after the 30 days you are only allowed to have 10 passcards and 2 identities. So if with the trial you stored more than 10 passcards, now a window will prompt you to either upgrade to the professional version or delete some of the passcards. Same with identities.
Another thing is the business/government use prohibition. Good is that they don't say anything about educational use, so that's free too.

The professional version costs $29.95, but I've found out how you can get a $10 discount on Robo Form Professional, down to $19.95, if you have less than $20,000 income per year. This is their statement:
You can claim a US$ 10.00 discount if your 2005 income is less than US$ 20000.00. To claim the discount enter SNC into the Discount Code field and click Update button. By claiming the SNC discount you certify that your 2005 income was less than US$ 20000.00 and you agree to send to Siber Systems documents that verify your income, if requested.



Download the latest version here (approx. 2MB): Robo Form 6.6.3
Download portable version of Robo Form from here: Pass 2 Go 6.6.3

Robo Form Security and Encryption

Robo Form has the option to password protect passcards, identities and safenotes. It can also logg off automatically after a certain time (or when the screensaver starts), empty the clipboard and set a dual password (this is nice).



Features of the security and encryption option in Robo Form:

• Strong Encryption Algorithms Used. Robo Form uses: AES (128-256 bit keys), Blowfish (256 bit key), RC6 (256 bit key), 3-DES (64 bit key) and 1-DES (64 bit key). AES key length depends on Master Password key length: 128 bit for MP less than 32 chars, 192 bit for MP from 32 to 47 chars, 256 bit for MP 48 chars or longer.


• Encryption by Master Password. You can protect all your Identities and Passcards with the Master Password thus making them inaccessible to unauthorized users and unreadable by hackers even if they are stolen.


• Master Password Caching. Once you enter Master Password, it is kept in memory, so that you do not have to reenter it for every passcard. Logoff command purges cached password from memory.


• Defeats Keyloggers. When Robo Form enters the saved password into form fields, it is not typing them through keyboard, so if a keylogger is installed on your computer and it is monitoring keyboard events for passwords, it will get no keyboard clicks when you use Robo Form to enter passwords.


• Auto-Logoff. You can ask Robo Form to purge cached Master Password from memory after a specified period of inactivity.


• Change Master Password. You can ask Robo Form to reprotect all passcards with the new Master Password. Also password protection can be removed or added to all passcards.

Download the latest version here (approx. 2MB): Robo Form 6.6.3
Download portable version of Robo Form from here: Pass 2 Go 6.6.3