My first flash drive, which I got about six years ago, offered me a whopping 8 megabytes of data. I don't think they even make them that small any more - the smallest are about 256 MB, and the serious ones run from 1 to 4 GB.
Most flash drives now come bundled with software, mainly because of market pressure from other flash manufacturers and from ever-smaller hard-disk drives. I have a 5 GB Seagate hard disk at home not much larger (though heavier) than a pickle-jar lid, but it has been replaced by newer technology: Apricorn Inc. has just issued the Aegis Mini, a 60 GB drive about the size of a package of process cheese singles.
Supplying flash drives with software became a big deal with a technology called U3, developed in 2004 by M-Systems and SanDisk, which lets users run U3-enabled applications on any Windows computer without installing or storing anything on the guest computer. U3 smart drives have built-in password protection, and are available from 256MB to 4GB from a variety of manufacturers.
U3 applications can launch when the USB drive is inserted, and leave no trace on the host computer when removed. Software developers wanting U3-enabled software use a U3 development kit, which installs the necessary enhancements, and USB drives must be built to conform to the U3 standard.
I suspect that eventually, they will take over the world.
There is a large number of applications available for them at the U3 Software site, some free (such as Mozilla's e-mail client Thunderbird, or the Open Office suite including word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, drawing tool and a database), and some in the $20 to $100 range (personal information managers or password keepers and games). Some U3 versions of well-known applications are smaller versions of their PC-based cousins, but chances are you rarely use whatever features they have removed.
Collectively, U3 programs are called "carry-and-run" applications, and if their popularity grows, they might one day free me entirely from having to haul around a schleptop computer or a Palm handheld.
The three keys under review here demonstrate the kind of advances made by these microdevices.
Cruzer Titanium 2 GB U3 USB Flash Drive , $89.99 (1 GB model); $139.99 (2 GB) (street)
- Rating: Five stars; ease of use: Easy
- The Good: Plug and play is rarely this easy.
- The Bad: The price.
- The Verdict: A useful, tiny tool for carrying around just about your entire officewherever you go.
The Cruzer Titanium is the bare-bones U3 drive, if you can call a drive with a lot of U3 software on it: CruzerSync (a tool that synchronizes your PC and the flash drive), Avast! Antivirus and Signup Shield (a password manager and protection for this flash drive). The drive also comes with a temporary account for Skype, the Voice over Internet Protocol telephone system, put there as an added attraction, with one month of free voicemail.
That pales beside another attraction: the Cruzer Titanium operates not only with Windows 2000 and XP, but also Linux and Macintosh OS 10.1.2 and up, for which the installation is a little more complex.
This flash drive is nicely built. Instead of the usual plastic cap, which tends to get dislodged in the pocket or, if on a keychain, from constant bumping against your car's dashboard, the Cruzer's USB connector slides out with a push of the thumb. The lanyard has a real metal clasp, as opposed to the nylon loop that most similar drives come with. But it has one peculiarity - a little metal belt clasp that doesn't look trustworthy at all.
It also has a strong blue light that goes on when the drive is attached, one of those annoyingly things you can see from across town.
Its body is made of titanium, as its name implies, and Sandisk boasts you can run a car over it and it won't be crushed. But you probably wouldn't care much one way or the other if this happens while it's hanging from the lanyard around your neck at the time.
The U3 software is impressive. It parks itself in your system tray, and when you click on the U3 icon, a menu pops up that closely resembles Windows' Start menu at the other end of the screen. In the left panel are the applications, and the right panel resembles Windows' Control Panel, with utilities such as Explore U3 Drive, Manage U3 Programs, Status and Settings, Add programs and Help and Support. There's also a password utility to protect the data on the flash drive.
Speaking of which, all this U3 software, including Skype, adds up to about 46 MB, leaving almost exactly 2 GB of space in the curious dynamic of measuring disc space in hexadecimal. To give you another perspective, loading up the open-source Open Office suite adds merely 76.3 MB more.
I dislike too may icons in the system tray - they collectively represent a drain on system resources - but the three icons the Cruzer puts in there (Skype, SignUp Shield, and the U3 start) all disappear when you eject the drive (there's an Eject button on the Start menu).
MobiKey, from Route1 Inc. , $449 (Cdn.) for the device and the first year of access to MobiNet; a two-year subscription is $729, and three years, $945.
- Rating: Four stars; ease of use: Easy
- The Good: A cheap price for a secure connection from wherever you are.
- The Bad: Not a fast connection at all.
- The Verdict: A useful tool for emergencies but a poor one for much else.
The MobiKey, while not a U3 device, shows how sophisticated USB technology has become without the need for a whole new interface.
Made by Toronto-based Route1 Inc., MobiKey is a subscription remote-access system protected by cryptographic identity management. This means that you designate a certain computer as one you wish to connect to (say, your office, if you're either on the road or bear for work), and install the included software.
You can then log onto this computer from any other machine connected to the Internet via cellular, Wi-Fi or LAN connections using the USB key and its included smart card. The security lies in a service called MobiNet, which operates through security algorithms approved by the Communications Security Establishment.
A plastic panel on the side of the drive flips up, revealing the tiny smart card inside; it is this device that encrypts certificates, passwords and connection information. It uses public key infrastructure (PKI), which means it cannot be used without your password, so losing it (or surviving being run over by a car) might be a real nuisance, but at least your data should still be secure.
The MobiKey is intended as a junior version of the Virtual Private Network, which is a much more complex way of linking two computers across a secure Internet connection. It is also very similar to another Toronto-based service, 01Communiqué's I'm InTouch, in almost every way except that MobiKey sits in the USB drive; I'm InTouch is a Web-based service, in which you log on with I'm InTouch, and the I'm InTouch server than logs you on to your target machine. MobiKey has an extra advantage - the user can designate up to five computers as hosts, meaning you can log on to any one of them from anywhere on the Net (as long as they're turned on, that is).
I'm InTouch doesn't tell you what your connection speeds are, but they don't seem to be much different from MobiNet's - the latter service told me that In was getting 68 kilobits per second down, and 8.2 kbps up, which is not very good, but good enough for such things as emergency connections.
The pricing, however, is steep: $449 (Cdn.), for the device and the first year of access to MobiNet; a two-year subscription is $729, and three years, $945.
XOFTSpy Portable, from Pareto Logic Inc. , $14.95 (U.S.) for the software; U3-enabled USB flash memory device not included.
- Rating: Four stars; ease of use: Easy
- The Good: A small price to pay for peace of mind when working on a strange computer.
- The Bad: Not all features are present in the XOFTspy 'lite' version.
- The Verdict: A useful program to have when using other U3 tools on a strange computer, a nice gesture to yourself and your host's owner.
ParetoLogic, of Victoria, B.C., a relative newcomer to the computer-security field, is just coming out from under a cloud that formed over some early marketing mistakes. Its newest product is XOFTspy Portable, a U3-enabled version of its XOFTspySE application (the "lite" version) for use on a flash drive. The application sells for $14.95 (U.S.), and operates only on Windows 2000 and XP platforms. The software under review came on a Memorex TravelDrive 512 MB USB 2.0 drive.
The concept here is that XOFTspy remains resident on the flash drive, but is licensed to run on any number of computers: Users who would like this setup are those who park themselves down at strange computers, such as those at Internet cafés.
The two systems U3 and XOFTspy, work in tandem. The idea is that you are protected from whatever evil lurks on those unknown machines, from viruses to keyloggers, and so can feel more secure doing on-line banking or other sensitive operations from a machine with unknown fingerprints all over it. And you can also assure the temporary host's owner that nothing will be left on the host computer. You can also offer to clean the host computer while you're at it, but I would suggest you do not do this with strangers - more than likely the host's owner will think you're actually installing spyware, not getting rid of it, and become grumpy.
ParetoLogic says the portable version of its XOFTspySE software protects against browser hijackers, adware, keyloggers, Trojans and pop-up generators, and offers "one of the largest spyware definition databases in the industry," which you can update. Now anti-spyware makers are notorious for not having a common definition of spyware (how else could they differentiate themselves?), so I'm not surprised that XOFTspy found 74 threats, 22 of them with a threat level rated "severe," on a machine that had just been cleaned by Symantec's Norton anti-virus and anti-spyware suite.
On a second scan immediately after, XOFTspy found eight "severe risk" registry values and two "low risk" ones.
Life is too short to find out why one spyware cleaner does not agree with another or why they keep finding new threats on a machine cleaner by a competitor's product; their makers always retort that it's because their product is better.
This kind of nonsense always leaves me nonplussed.