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Hello Andy!
Thanks for the feedback, it’s really appreciated.
First things first – I’m not accepting donations for AxCrypt via the new site, since we’re actually trying to run this as a Freemium software, i.e. a free software with a Premium mode for pay. So, sad to say perhaps, I’ve gone commercial. But, the intention is that the free functionality shall be fairly equivalent with the original free ‘donationware’.
That the donation button does not work on the old site is news to me, thanks for that. You’re right, the Payson link is dead. Will fix asap.
By the way, you do not need a PayPal account to use a credit card via PayPal, they’ll work as general payment provider also.
Now, as for the sign in & password issue. Technically there’s not really a problem having a separation of the password used to sign in to the web-part and do the things that the web is needed for. In fact, the software does support this partially, just try to open a file encrypted with version 1 and a different password and you’ll be prompted for it. But you can’t encrypt with a different password in AxCrypt 2 in any convenient way.
The reason we decided, so far anyway, to use a single password for it all is because we think that for most users the convenience outweighs the security concerns. I’m really not that keen on having users having to keep track of, and keep separate in their minds, two passwords. We have enough passwords to keep track of as it is!
Another reason to use a single password is that we’ve seen many cases with AxCrypt 1 where users encrypt a new file, and then either forget what password was used that time, or mistype it twice. Both cases lead to data loss. That’s another reason why we validate the password first, and only allow encryption after ‘signing in’. This decreases the risk of encrypting with the wrong password.
What we are considering for the future is a mode of operation where the password as such actually never reaches the server, instead we’d use a challenge-response protocol for the authentication part of the process, and to all encryption and decryption locally.
This should address your real concerns. The problem is that it might not be enough, because there’s an intuitive feeling that if a password is used for anything online, it’s a problem. Even when it’s really not.
What’s your take on this?
Svante
Rob, thanks for providing the link to tresorit. It has indeed similar, and even more extensive, functionality. However, it is priced at 6x AxCrypt Premium (which is also only required for the sharing person, not necessarily the sharees who can use AxCrypt Fre). As for AxCrypt being too clunky that’s something I’d dearly like to address. The intention and goal of AxCrypt is to be the opposite of clunky, so please help us out here and let us know what we can do better! We’re listening!
Svante
Hello,
This was actually responded to via private e-mail, but since the topic is here as well, I’ll copy that response more or less verbatim.
Yes, AxCrypt is perfectly suited for this scenario. However, the sharing feature does require Premium – at least for the part doing the sharing. I.e., Premium is required to share with someone, but the sharee does not need Premium. In the case you describe, it sounds like your managers would be best served by having Premium, the 2 of them.
Since you’re always getting 30 days free Premium, I suggest you download and try it out. What you are looking for then is the ‘Key Share’ feature, this is what let’s you share the internal file encryption keys with others without sharing your own password.
Svante
Hi,
Thank you for reporting this.
Can you send a screen shot of the error message please?
Svante
Hello Paul,
As mentioned previously here – there’s not much we can do without knowing what e-mail address you used.
The most common reasons for not finding the activation code are, in approximate order of descending frequency:
1 – The e-mail is sorted as spam.
2 – The e-mail address was misspelled when signing up, so it can’t reach the intended mailbox.
3 – A few e-mail services will block e-mail based on incorrect black lists. Thus it never reaches the recipient. We can usually see if this is the case if we know the e-mail address and the approximate time it was expected.
4 – The recipient inbox is full, and the mail server rejects the e-mail.
5 – The recipient e-mail servers are not responding immediately, and it takes a while for the sending to be retried.Svante
Hello Soyinka!
It would help to investigate if you provided us with the e-mail you’re trying to register. You can write it here, perhaps replacing dots and at-signs with words instead so the e-mail will not get easily scraped by spammers. Or, you can send it in via the contact form on the web site.
The most likely reason is that it’s in your spam, or that you misspelled the e-mail when entering it.
Regards,
Svante
Hello,
Yes, AxCrypt 2.1 and 1.7 works fine on Windows 10.
You should regardless use different accounts for your family members, both for convenience and some aspects of security – even within the famile. Different accounts separates not only AxCrypt, but e-mail, browsing history etc etc.
Also, you can absolutely use AxCrypt with a single Windows account if you insist, as long as you either sign-out (like you need to do with for example e-mail), or just just let the screen saver go active.
Regards,
Svante
Hello Heiko,
Thanks for the feedback. Right now, one-time connection to the Internet is mandatory unfortunately. We’re planning to make it possible to run without Internet, but we don’t have that quite yet.
We totally get that the situation exists, it’s just very unusual, and we’re also considering various ways to do this in a way that’s not too difficult for the user.
Svante
Thanks for interesting input everyone!
A few quick comments:
– Self-decrypting archives. They may or may not come back. In the meantime, it’s so simple to just send the full standalone install-free version along with the encrypted files, or include a link to it. No installation requried, just the ability to run a .exe .
– Blocking of .exe and extension renaming. I do that sometimes, and it works about 50% of the cases. Lots of mail software today will actually look inside the file, and do a risk analysis from that.
– Different passwords for different files for *personal* use, please see my blog post here. The other scenarios I think would be quite well supported by key sharing by password, see here .
– Decryption of documents without installing special software: That’s not going to happen unless some cross platform encryption software (on all major platforms: Android, iOS, Windows, OS X etc) takes a similar position as PDF for document facsimilies. Remember – it’s *all* about special software. The only thing that is different between *special* software, and software you don’t need to install is that it’s already installed. All software is installed. Some as part of the OS. Some as part of the distribution of the OS. Some packaged by the device manufacturer. Some installed by the user.
– Key sharing – i.e. the ability to have multiple recipients of an encrypted file à la PGP. We do think that AxCrypt does this pretty well, and that it’s really easy to use compared to specifically PGP. Nothing wrong with PGP technically – except it’s not easy to use. The original impulse to write AxCrypt came from PGP and it’s not-so-easy to use aspects.
– AxCrypt 1 development: AxCrypt 2 will hopefully remain in active development for many years now, so there’s plenty of opportunity to tweak, fine-tune, add, remove and revise features and requirements. AxCrypt 1 will not be actively developed, it’s simply not practical. It’s based on 15 year old C++ code specifically made for the Windows Win32 API. It just can’t be made for anything else without a complete rewrite. Which is what AxCrypt 2. It’s a new freshly built C# platform, that we can continue to develop and run on different platforms.
There’s more to be said (and done), but another time.
Hello Mathieu!
Thanks again. It skips encrypted files, but when there are no files left after filtering all that should not be encrypted, this happens.
You’re a great tester! (But this one we should not have missed…) The issue is here .
Hello,
We don’t have release dates, we’re on a continuous delivery schedule which typically means once or twice a week. We’ll be releasing a new version during the week, but I can’t promise that these fixes make it – it depends on the priority of other issues, but it’s likely.
If you’re using AxCrypt you’ll see a red light bulb in the upper right corner of the main window when there’s a newer version than the one you’re running available.
And yes, you’re right, we don’t have the rename feature in the menus. That’s an oversight. I’ve logged a new issue for that. You can follow it here . Thank you!
Svante
Hello,
Actually, to be honest, I don’t think it’s frozen, just very slow… As mentioned, there’s a performance issue with selecting many files from Windows Explorer. This affects all such operations: encrypt/decrypt/wipe/rename .
If you can check, open up Task Manager. You should see an AxCrypt process appearing and disappearing there for a while, and then the operation started.
However, AxCrypt should not freeze during this – it should essentially not notice, although the Windows Explorer extension may behave strangely since it’s busy with this.
Sounds good! You can also follow the specific issue about multiple passwords here.
Svante
Ok, thank you. We’ve registered an issue for this. You can follow progress here.
Svante
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