All good things come to an end; i.e. Forced change.

This is the notice I got the other day when I fired up my Firefox browser.  Sxipper has been the password manager I have used for the past couple years now and have grown COMPLETELY dependent on it.  So much in fact, that when the newest version of Firefox (4) was released, and Sxipper was found to be incompatible, I decided against the Firefox upgrade.

Of course with the now imminent demise of the Sxipper servers, I am forced to upgrade and find a new password manager.  For those that are interested, I chose LastPass.  It seems to meet most of my password manager requirements while still remaining free.  They do happen to have a premium edition (which includes some multiple platform options) and maybe this post will generate enough ad clicks to pay for/justify it. (So be sure to visit the sponsors above!)   In any event, it seems like a good piece of software and replacement for Sxipper.

The reason I decided to blog about this is because it made me think about how the longevity of a software package or a company should probably play a part in the decision making process when choosing between various solutions.  As more and more services move up into the cloud and your data becomes more and more scattered, events like the one to the left will become increasingly annoying. 😐

It was only a few short months ago I mourned Drop.IOs untimely death. 
(http://vcloudinfo.com/2011/02/subject-drop-io-replacement.html)

Feel free to rant in the comments if you’ve also had a good piece of software decide to shut it’s doors.