A new post on the Xmarks blog has now revealed that LastPass was the company that bought the popular bookmarking service which was said to shutdown in January 2011. The good news is that Xmarks has been saved and that everything that is remains the same.

Xmarks Premium has been introduced and it appears to use a business model very similar to the one that LastPass uses successfully. Xmarks Premium users get additional features like Android and iPhone apps, priority support and more for $12 a year. Or, they can pay $20 if they are LastPass users as well to get both premium services for a discount.

Good news for Opera users as XMarks has listed integration with the popular web browser on of their priorities in their roadmap. So, development continues and it is possible that the two services get integrated into one eventually. (via Xmarks, LastPass).

All in all an excellent acquisition that – for once – does not change a thing for current users of the service.

It is for example possible to access the passwords on other computer systems without having to carry them around on storage devices like USB sticks. And since Last Pass is not only compatible with Internet Explorer it comes also handy for users who work with web browsers like Firefox. It is basically possible to share passwords and other data between Internet Explorer and Firefox this way.

The download of the password management software is cross-browser compatible. It can install the add-on in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox at the same time. New users can create an account during the installation while existing users need to supply their login credentials to end the installation.

Last Pass adds a button to the Internet Explorer toolbar that provides quick access to most of the features offered by the password management software. It is for example possible to open some of the recently opened websites, switch identities, edit the preferences or add secure notes.

Password Management is not the only feature offered by Last Pass. The program can store notes in the password vault and offers an option to create form profiles to fill out forms on websites more easily.

The add-on will automatically recognize username and password forms on websites and act accordingly. It can fill out the form automatically if the login credentials are already stored in its database. New passwords can be generated with the versatile password generator. Last Pass is definitely one of the best password management tools.

The LastPass team has been hard at work making their password management software compatible with additional browsers and devices. The first step is a set of bookmarklets that they have created. These bookmarklets can be used in browsers like Opera, Google Chrome, Safari and even the iPhone to make use of the stored passwords and form information of LastPass. All that needs to be done on the user’s part is to log into the LastPass website and drag the bookmarklets into the web browser.

Three bookmarklets are available: Login, Fill or Fill Form. Login will try to login the user into the website automatically that he is currently on. Fill will only fill in the information stored at LastPass while FillForm will fill out forms automatically. The website contains instructions for a few web browsers, make sure you read them thoroughly.

One could say that those bookmarklets could be a security risk. Imagine someone else accessing the computer where the bookmarklets are installed. That user could practically log into all websites that are stored at LastPass. The team has created a bookmarklet reset for exactly that purpose. This will reset the bookmarklets rendering all bookmarklets that have been created up to this point useless.

A good password management software should ensure data security, provide password generation and integration into common web browsers to make the life of the user as comfortable as possible.

The password management software Last Pass does all of that and much more. It currently supports Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox on Windows, Linux and Macintosh. It provides the option to import the existing passwords from Internet Explorer, Firefox and multiple password management software applications like KeePass and RoboForm and makes them available on their secure website and in the browser of choice.

The password manager automatically recognizes websites that it has user data stored for in its database and will fill out the login forms automatically so that it is only a matter of clicking on login to login to the website.

Each password and the rest of the user data can be accessed on the last pass website. Sites can be loaded from there and data changed. The online profile provides access to another interesting feature: It is possible to fill out form data for login forms so that it will be automatically filled out as well when the user registers at a new service.

The password generator comes in handy when registering to a new service on the Internet. A hotkey or the notification on top of the website can be used to open the password generator which can be configured to suite the website’s requirements.

The Password Management Software Last Pass will also recognize password changes and ask the user if he wants to store the new password in the database. The passwords can be easily backed up and restored to access them on multiple computers. Since all of them are stored in encrypted form on the Last Pass website it’s only a matter of entering the login information and / or installing the plugin for the browser to access the passwords on other computers.

Windows users can also use a portable USB client that can connect to the password management service and pull the passwords from there after proving the correct login details.

One interesting feature is the function to share passwords. Have you ever send someone passwords in plaintext before? That should be a thing of the past because passwords can now be shared securely using Last Pass as well.

Lastly there is a feature to supply different login credentials if more than one account is stored in the password manager for a website.

The only problem that was encountered during tests happened when trying to change passwords on websites. The generated password would fill out the Old Password and the first form of the New Password field. A workaround for this was to copy the password from the password generator, let it paste the password and paste it manually in the second password field and enter the old password manually. Not a huge deal but something that could probably be easily fixed in future builds.

Last Pass is a comfortable password management software that should appeal to many users.