emw said:
This is a cool tool, and I thought about recommending it, but you still need to (1) set up an unprivileged user to switch to, and (b) do the switching manually.
Using a screen saver password would seem to provide the same level of security as switching to a bogus user (maybe more, since then his roommate couldn't even use the system for anything) and do it automatically.
Nope - you might need to set up a bogus account (not sure), but you definitely
don't need to switch to it - just go to the login screen, then log back into your account when you want. I'm not sure if you get the menu bar "User" menu unless you have more than one account, but it's trivial to set a bogus one up with no privs and a bizarre password - who cares if you forget it, as you can just delete the entire account and lose nothing - although it's a good idea to have a "pristine" account anyway to verify problems with. It could even have the same password as your regular account, which would make it precisely as difficult to break into as your regular one, but harder to forget the password.
The plus for some users who have other users with admin passwords (not the case here) is that the screen saver will let
any admin log in and get back to
your account. Scary. The login window is also less hackable, although, for most, using the screen saver is just as good. In fact, I'd implement both, and use the screen saver as a backup in case I forgot to go to the Login window.