Easy to remember passwords are often also easy to guess, and hard to remember passwords….can obviously be forgotten. Picword is a free application that lets you lock and unlock your screen by pointing towards certain locations on an image, instead of writing the traditional text password.
Installation & Requirements
Picword is a small application available for all versions of Windows and its setup has only standard settings. Worth mentioning is that the program recommends users to close all other running apps before launching the setup process.
Interface
Picword’s interface is an image, by default a green frog. To begin with, users will have to set their target-based password by adding three types of targets: single clicks, long clicks and lines. All of them can be added using the mouse left click button and the password has to contain at least 2 targets. The two buttons available in the top left and right corners of the image allow users to delete all the current targets or save them as the new password.
Picword also requires having a 4-digit recovery PIN in case you forget the password. Using the PIN, you can also change the lockscreen image in the program’s Settings. The same Settings menu lets users hide mouse clicks and corner icons and set the duration of the long click for increased security.
While all of this is nice and simple, the program does have a flaw: anyone can navigate to the desktop or other open windows using ALT+TAB. Of course, some individuals might not realize they can do this, but do we really want to hope our screen is locked instead of knowing that for sure?
Pros
– Quick, adware-free setup.
– Users have three types of targets they can use to set a picture password.
– Any picture can be used as the lockscreen background and users can also hide the two buttons displayed in the corners.
Cons
– Anyone can navigate to any other open windows or the desktop using ALT+TAB.
Conclusion
Until the ALT+TAB bypass is removed, Picword remains a fun way to unreliably lock your screen. Even so, the idea of target-based password does have potential and can generate passwords that are impossible to guess.
