SmartSwipe SMSEN01 Credit Card Reader

Pros: works fine for personal cards

Cons: does not work with business based cards

Other Thoughts: smart swipe should be able to fix fairly eady, map another field in the swipe if it exists

Pros: Installs easily. At the outset, you have to download the software from the vendor's site before you actually plug the device in.

Once installed it works like a dream in IE.

Cons: Doesn't work with any browser other than IE. Had I known this, I would never have bought it. For those interested, no, it doesn't work in Firefox in IE compatibility mode.

Other Thoughts: The concept it great and one which I really like. However, here we have yet another vendor who believes that the world's most insecure web browser is the way ahead and which should be embraced to the exclusion of all others.

Personally, I feel conned. The vendor (not NewEgg) never mentioned its undying devotion to Microsoft's IE in its sales video. In fact, they made it look as though their product would work with any Internet browser.

I'll be very wary about buying something from a vendor who has a .ca address in the future.

Pros: Swiping works, though I have to swipe it quickly. It works well on sites I frequent like newegg. Tech support wrote me back within a day and promised to update it or otherwise get it to work on a site I had trouble with (gog.com) within another day.

Cons: did not work on gog.com .. put info in wrong fields and locked them so that even the manual point-to-field and click custom ability could not work. However - tech support emailed me back within a day and promised to get it to work within the next day. I'll update review after I get word/fix.

Other Thoughts: Contrary to the other reviewer's claim that this is like a keyboard that a keylogger could easily read from "The device encrypts info before it enters your computer." Unless I was misinformed, the encryption happens on a chip in the device. Most keyboards don't have "on(key)board" encryption chips, though I've some in-line hardware based encryption devices for keyboards. This was a gift, I'm willing to give them time to work on supporting more sites and maybe building a field-learning database or something.

Pros: Nice looking. Convenience.

Cons: I fail to see how this can be more secure than entering your card number by keyboard. It will have to emulate a keyboard, as there are no sites with support for direct, encrypted entry of card number. Any trojan that acts as a keylogger should be able to intercept the number as it goes from the device to the browser.