Comments on: Your budget in a browser

New services help to manage your money online.

[punterjoe]

Looking forward to dumping Quicken

While this may not be ready for primetime yet, I eagerly look forward to saying buh-bye to Intuit. I have never had more unpleasant customer service experiences than I have dealing with their autocratic bureaucracy. I've tried to express my displeasure to them directly but their roadblocks to customer feedback have thwarted me at every attempt. Anything that breaks their stranglehold on personal finance software, I'll welcome with open arms.

[TxDot]

Try Mvelopes

Check out www.mvelopes.com. It is modeled after the tried and true envelope system that your grandparents may have used. It is designed to prevent you from overspending by having you pre-allocate money to different envelopes (catagories). You can tell at a glance if you are overspending and then cut back or move (virtually) money from one envelope to another to cover the overage. It really is all about helping people control their money and having and using a real budget as opposed to Quicken and Money which simply tell your where you've spent your money.

[rjver]

Must everything be online for CNET?

No matter what publication you read beloning to CNET, the authors promote online applications. No matter what. Amazing. I guess you guys want to have the service to get into new areas of activity.

First, why must you push readers to do everything online? Why not simply be neutral?

Second, why is online better? Now as far as you are concerned, even Quicken should be online. Now, you give the apparent pros, but never the cons to your ideas (neutrality, again). Your data is available anywhere, right? Yes, as long as you have a link to that data. How often haven't I been stuck, even in places like Manhattan, without any link to anything. WiFi, network. Nothing.

Third, your own data. Who updates it? You do? Why must it be online?

Four, talk of online, who guarantees that the server somewhere is secure? Credit cards are stolen constantly. Who says your financial information is not? You personal identity isn't. Your bank account also isn't? Is that remote computer REALLY secure? As you guys have pointed out, even the banks aren't really safe in the online world...

Talking of safety, depending on where you are in the world (civilized one, BTW), you can find yourself kidnapped thanks to lack of such safety.

But no, none of this is ever relevant to you guys. No two views. Push, and push hard for one type of world. The other, well, nothing of what I just just said is at all valid. Biased, one sided and which even brings into question how serious you are about giving information. That of course is yet another topic many are questioning of news organizations this day and age.

[umnlawgrrl]

security concerns are valid, but why so upset?

Have you been burned by an online app in the past? Sounds like it...I for one love Web 2.0 software - it allows me to get at my data without lugging around my laptop and finding somewhere to connect it. If you have a desktop, you can't get at that information anywhere except at home, which is VERY annoying and inconvenient.

With Web 2.0, all I need is any computer with an internet connection, even an airport internet kiosk, which is VERY nice if you travel a lot. Also good if you've ever run into the problem of being at work and needing information or a document that's on your home computer.

Not that your security concerns aren't valid. An online money management program should have bookoo encryption and require a strong password (several characters, including numbers and symbols) which they don't send in text via an e-mail. They should require a reset if you lose that password, instead of providing it to you after a couple of security questions. But remember, your financial data is already online, on a server somewhere and theoretically vulnerable to theft: virtually every bank or credit card company offers online access to accounts now.

[lorenbc]

And I would...

...want to put my private financial information on someone else's server because...????

Has everyone lost their minds? Why in God's name would anyone want to have their financial life anywhere outside their own four walls and their (presumably) trusted financial institutions'?

Who are these websites? Why would one trust them, given how many security breaches have already occurred at more established institutions?

IMO, doing this is just asking for trouble. Maybe it won't happen, but why take unnecessary risk?

Loren

[mcgmatt]

Financial webware develpers: integrate or die

Are any of the above a registered financial institution like a bank or a broker? Where's the Chase, or CitiCorp, or Wells Fargo financial planning webware? If the webware is not from a well-established financial institution, I can't trust that my data will be safe with them. Okay, maybe it's not 100% safe with my bank or broker site, either. But financial institutions are bound by financial security and privacy laws, whereas an independent financial webware company is not.

Financial data belongs on financial institution websites - online banking, online broker, online credit card, etc. Broker sites already have many tools, but online banking is still little more than an online statement, with no budgeting or planning tools. Financial webware developers should expect to fail unless they make deals with the banks to get their tools integrated into their online banking sites.