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VaultletSuite 2 Go	Oct 22 2007	BUGUGLY A noble effort. Well thought out in terms of it actually providing security instead of just a bunch more security hype. A welcome relief from the continuous barrage of hype without substance security wares being peddled these days. The interface is not the prettiest, but I think that goes to the hype v substance. Give some of us who desire it substance now, pretty it up later. I am no fan of auto-updates that don't tell me exactly what they are doing to my machine and why. At least give me a link to click or something so I can see what you say should happen, check it to what actually happens to my machine. The most recent update from them just updated, no mention of details of what it did or why. Did it change file permissions, did it install new files? Give me details over user-friendly every time. This was a surprise considering the careful attention to security details on the initial install. VaultletSuite would serve me better if they always lean toward careful attention to security details and letting me decide vs user friendly. As long as we can trust them to always do the right thing, it is great stuff. But blind trust is counter to secure systems. Full and open disclosure should always be the top priority. Judging by the efforts to date, I think they will get this right, if there is such a thing as getting it right. Likely it is always going to be a balancing act, danger in going to far one way or the other. It is an incredibly easy to use product given the complexity of what it does. Overall, vaultletsuite appears to be the best/only product to address email security issues in a substantive manner. Most email users don't know or care about these types of concerns enough to even understand the problem that is being addressed. It is nice to see somebody working on solutions for those of us who do care. Congratulations to vaultletsoft for their efforts so far. My only request is that they try to always make sure first and foremost the concerns of the security paranoid are FULLY addressed. (Version 2.3)		0
		[ 1 Reply - Reply ]

Replies:

VaultletSuite 2 Go

Oct 23 2007

R.P.RUIZ Hello Bug,

Your comments about trusting the updater module are right on the money, and will be addressed in the next major update, v2.4. The ability to inform the user about the motivation and extent of the changes is currently stubbed in within the Updater module - as a result of you taking the time to speak your mind, it's now at the top of the list of v2.4's new features.

Personally, I'm fond of Firefox's update process, which links to a web page that allows you to drill down to see what is the motivation for the update before proceeding. I envision doing something similar to this.

For the record, most incremental updates only touch two jar files in the installation directory: the main VaultletSuite jar, and the translation jar. The two of these files amount to about 300K, and are simply swapped with the outdated jars as the Updater finishes up. Of course, without being notified, you wouldn't know that, so I can definitely empathize with your position.

Concerning "medium sized" updates (as the Updater module describes 3-4 MB downloads to users), the changes slated to be made to the Updater module for v2.4 will require that the outdated Updater download a partial installation utility similar to (but significantly smaller than) the original installer which will then autorun, but still allow you to exit from the process if you wish. After that, future "medium sized" updates will contain an option to manually download and install them yourself too.

I'll make sure that everybody's advised of the 2.4 release before it takes place, so that it's not a surprise. Between now and then, there may be a couple of patches released that deal with improvements to the new account wizard and bug patches, but I don't envision them being obligatory (since the bugs fixed don't jeopardize security or have destructive effects), so you can skip them until v2.4 is released.

Thanks again for your feedback. As a result, everybody benefits

Rick
(Version 2.3)

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