Some feedback (why I'm not buying)
My usual response to people who complain about the cost of software is that they should stop whining to the developer about the price and to simply not make the purchase if they don't feel it's worth it. I realize I may be treading dangerously close to hypocrisy with this post, but I feel that Knox has the potential to live up to its $35 price tag and want to give some thoughts to the developers. Of course, if anything I write reveals a misconception or misunderstanding behind the software, I would be happy to read the corrections!
The first gripe is the big one: lack of integration with 1Password. I read the guide and FAQ, and it was stated that feedback on this issue was welcome. So, here it is: a way to store generated passwords and to auto-fill those passwords with the 1Password master password would be phenomenal. I'm used to using Disk Utility to create encrypted disk images, but having a tie-in with 1Password would elevate Knox above Disk Utility's functionality. As it stands, I'm stuck entering passwords into a secure note within 1Password whether I use Knox or Disk Utility. There is no advantage to Knox here.
The second (and third, fourth) deals with the features that Knox offers over Disk Utility. The site for Knox was honest in stating that the major benefit to Knox was the user interface. Indeed, I like the menu bar icon that allows me to easily lock and unlock vaults without having to find the actual disk image in Finder. I didn't like much else. I was a bit confused when creating my first Knox vault. Was it going to be similar to 1Password, where this was going to be a Knox master file? (It was just creating a disk image, similar to Disk Utility. Now that I know, it won't be an issue in the future.)
There was another surprise once I created the first Knox vault: the empty disk image was 466 MB. All of the encrypted disk images I make with Disk Utility are sparse bundles (by my choice), which start at less than 10 MB and grow as documents are added. Knox removes a lot of the options that make Disk Utility's image creation a bit intimidating, but even with the advanced options I could not find a way to create a vault using a sparse bundle. I was surprised that it wasn't the default behavior. If I remember correctly, sparse bundles were introduced in OS X 10.5; combined with Knox's advanced menu "compatibility" option between 10.5 and "10.4 and later," I started to wonder if the software was completed around the time that 10.5 was released, and if it hasn't received any major work since then. Perhaps there's a good security reason to avoid sparse bundles, but I came away feeling that Knox might not have received much attention from AgileBits. The "copyright 2011" in the Knox version pane seemingly further supports this idea.
I recognize that Knox does offer some features over an image created with Disk Utility. Spotlight indexing, an internal backup system (which would arguably be unnecessary with the use of sparse bundles and Time Machine), and that wonderful menu interface for unlocking encrypted volumes without having to touch the Finder are the ones that stand out as being readily apparent. Integration with 1Password would be a killer feature. Pair it up with an even dressier interface (something in the style of 1Password), and this would be a program well worth its price. As things stand, Disk Utility - by virtue of being bundled with the operating system - badly undercuts Knox, and even seems to be superior when it comes to the actual encrypted volume itself.
Despite that, I'll be keeping an eye on Knox. There is a huge amount of potential for this program, and I believe that it will reach that potential once AgileBits gives it their full treatment.
Thoughts and comments are welcome, but not expected. Of course, I'd be absolutely delighted to hear that Knox 3 is on its way, and that it features integration with 1Password 
Comments
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Hi @ledgem,
I appreciate you taking the time to write down your thoughts. I apologize for the delay in the response, the Knox forum doesn't get a lot of traffic and most of the feedback are sent to our Knox support address.
For folks that are comfortable with Disk Utility or just deal with a few disk images, Knox wouldn't fit their needs. Knox can be thought as a manager for multiple disk images. It also handles backups in the background via a small menu bar app.
the first gripe is the big one: lack of integration with 1Password.
This was never the reason to use Knox, but it certainly is a natural assumption based on the fact that we own both Knox and 1Password.
All we can say for now is that it is one of our dreams to make this possible but the move to Mac App Store may mean this won't be possible due to the sandboxing technology. That said, there may be ways around it just like the way we handle the browser extensions with the Mac App Store version of 1Password.
We'd love to move Knox to the Mac App Store in the future as well but nothing can be written in stone at the moment.
Indeed, I like the menu bar icon that allows me to easily lock and unlock vaults without having to find the actual disk image in Finder.
Not only locking/unlocking but also restoring, backups in addition to creating vaults all from the same menu bar app.
I was a bit confused when creating my first Knox vault. Was it going to be similar to 1Password, where this was going to be a Knox master file?
A Knox vault is just a sparsebundle image, it creates a mountable volume quickly for your use.
Knox and 1Password are two unrelated products, they don't work the same way.
There was another surprise once I created the first Knox vault: the empty disk image was 466 MB.
This depends on the configuration you set for the vault (configurable via the "Advanced Options" when you create a new vault), it is proportional to the size you set for the vault.
By default, Knox creates an expandable vault that should grow as much as the free space on your hard drive, which is now set as the fixed size for the vault.
For an example, if you tell Knox to create an expandable vault on a drive that has 200GB free, it'll set the fixed size to 200GB, which results into a 300MB initial vault.
Do the same for Disk Utility and you'll see the same thing, it'll create a 300MB file for a 200GB sparsebundle file.
If you create a smaller fixed size for the Knox vault, the initial size will be very small.
If I remember correctly, sparse bundles were introduced in OS X 10.5; combined with Knox's advanced menu "compatibility" option between 10.5 and "10.4 and later,"
In Knox 2, the default for new vaults is using sparsebundle format with HFS+Journaling file system and the fixed size is set to the amount of free space.
If you want to use the previous "sparseimage" format, you have to change the compatibility option to "10.4 or later".
We definitely could've updated it to say "Sparsebundle" or "SparseImage" but we wanted it to be simple for regular folks, rather than using technical terms.
Knox might not have received much attention from AgileBits.
Here's our history of releases for Knox: https://agilebits.com/knox/mac/release_notes
If there's something not working, we'd get it fixed but right now, Knox works great. A brand new version of Knox is in the plans but just like the recently released 1Password 4 for iOS, we won't be sharing any information about Knox 3 until we're ready.
(which would arguably be unnecessary with the use of sparse bundles and Time Machine),
Not entirely accurate, Time Machine runs at any given time, it can back up your sparseundle while it is in use, which makes it possible that Time Machine backs up incomplete sparsebundle files. That's why Knox automatically ejects your vault before it backs it up and it duplicates the vault files as separate files, so that you get a complete vault file that can be restored. You don't have the luxury of restoring a specific backup in time from Time Machine because it restores band files rather than the whole vault.
Integration with 1Password would be a killer feature. Pair it up with an even dressier interface (something in the style of 1Password), and this would be a program well worth its price. ...Of course, I'd be absolutely delighted to hear that Knox 3 is on its way, and that it features integration with 1Password
Agreed. All of which are in the plans, just nothing we can confirm for now.
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