5 ms·

Hah. With the gimmicks, tricks, and dark patterns this company has pulled with consumer, what are the chances professionals would trust them with something like

Hah. With the gimmicks, tricks, and dark patterns this company has pulled with consumer, what are the chances professionals would trust them with something like this?

alpha_squared 5y ago
I'm a subscriber, but unfamiliar with what you're referencing. Do you mind sharing?
wskinner 5y ago
Care to elaborate?
jagger27 5y ago
I thought AgileBits was pretty well respected around here. What dark patterns are you referring to?
- dastx 5y ago
  I'm assuming he's referring to their beginnings of being a mostly local password manager (iirc they also had a one-off lifetime purchase), to forcing people to migrate to their cloud only infrastructure with a relatively high subscription price. I'd never heard of 1Password before they were fully SaaS, but as I understand it, some of the original users were pretty upset with this move. Either way, I used to be a 1Password customer, and their product, at least on the Mac, was the most polished password manager.
  - wferrell 5y ago
    What did you switch to if you stopped using 1Password?
    - dastx 5y ago
      Bitwarden. One of the big reasons for doing so was because when I left my company, they took my Mac away from me, so I invested in a new laptop, for me there was no way I was going for Windows or Mac. So Linux it is. 1Password at the time had extremely poor support for Linux - no desktop client, their 1PasswordX was missing a lot of features and was super slow too. I switched to Bitwarden because it's open source, and because they have a good enough Linux client. Their browser extension and desktop client doesn't come close to what 1Password provided on Mac, but it does the job. Bitwarden isn't without its issues, but at $10 a year, and its open source nature, it's worth every penny and then some.
      - dteare 5y ago
        Thanks for sharing. I’m sorry it took us so long to release a native Linux app. We have a great app for Linux now in beta and will move it to an official release shortly. https://blog.1password.com/1password-for-linux-beta-is-now-open/ https://blog.1password.com/1password-for-linux-beta-is-now-o... I hope you can give us another chance. —Dave 1Password Founder
        seppin 5y ago
        Hi Dave. I understand that subscription is your future no matter what, but please don't cut off options for stand alone licenses and local syncing.
        dastx 5y ago
        Thank you, I'm aware of the Linux client and it got me excited when it was announced, however since switching, OSS has become more and more important to me, so it's unlikely that I'll switch back.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - philsnow 5y ago
        You can self-host this unofficial version https://github.com/dani-garcia/bitwarden_rs https://github.com/dani-garcia/bitwarden_rs if you prefer. maybe not worth $10/month of your time amortized to set up, but it has been fire-and-forget for me. My kids have started accumulating more passwords than they can memorize (and their memorized passwords were terrible), so I wanted a family password manager. I considered using "1password for familes" which I have access to for free from my day job, but if/when I leave the company then I'll have to go back to paying for it. So far I greatly prefer the experience of bitwarden over 1password. I use the web vault, the native mac app, and the linux command line app (through a janky homegrown dmenu/xclip shell script), and I have no complaints at all.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    It's exactly this - the original switch to SaaS was a high price to pay for basically what you already had if you had local sync/dropbox setup. They finally fixed many of the objections with the "family" SaaS subscription and it just works and the price may be "low enough" that I don't bother figuring out a way out of it - but it is still pretty much the perfect example of "locked in".
    - ssully 5y ago
      What do you mean by locked in? When I think of locked in, I imagine it being hard to cancel and move to another service. I switched to 1Password last year from LastPass and the first thing I checked was the process for exporting my data. It seemed on par with LassPass, which was very simple, so I made the switch.
      - bombcar 5y ago
        That's the locked in - they have all your passwords and (in theory) could make a change that makes it hard to extract.
        djrogers 5y ago
        Using the term ‘locked in’ to mean ‘some day something maybe might lock me in’ is a huuuuuuge stretch. To the point that I’d say you’re wrong.
  - anaerobicover 5y ago
    Yes, this. I don't have any problem with paying for updates, or even really a subscription. I have a problem with their hard push to "use our cloud", burying the abilities to not immediately create a cloud account, and the way they respond to customers in their forums when they ask about non-cloud options. Ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417832
  - ruph123 5y ago
    I used 1Password for a long time. When they shifted to the SaaS model I left angrily. Over time I tried out several other programs such as Enpass (came close to the original 1pw), keepass varieties, Bitwarden but found myself back at 1Password this year. One big thing, which funny enough is another dark pattern I guess, is the family account feature. I allows me to take family members on and we can share certain passwords and I think even help recover an account. This is also important because 1PW is the most easy to use password manager and my mom was really struggling with Enpass.
    - npunt 5y ago
      A new feature that adds value is not a 'dark pattern'. Lets not be dramatic. Even moving from one-time to subscription isn't a 'dark pattern', its a business model move to shift to recurring revenue, which we know is something that businesses need to keep the lights on. You can debate the merits of it, but it's not a dark pattern in and of itself. HOW they execute that might be, but the change itself isn't. You just have a personal preference to not want to pay for it in a particular way.
      - ruph123 5y ago
        > A new feature that adds value is not a 'dark pattern'. Lets not be dramatic. Family plans are in my eyes. They log users more into the platform and makes it very difficult to switch. If you want to move away from Spotify, you now have to convince enough of the others to make it feasible. > Even moving from one-time to subscription isn't a 'dark pattern' I did not claim that it was one. I also was not even mad about recurring payments, to me the problematic change was that the data was now hosted on some other machine owned by the company who is producing the software (e.g. in theory single point of entry).
        npunt 5y ago
        I'm trying to charitably understand what you're advocating for but it sounds like you're arguing that getting multiple people to use any app is criteria for dark pattern because once they do start using that app, to switch you have to convince them as a group. So.. should everyone use different apps? Or is a protocol the solution? As far as where data is stored, which sounds a bit like a different argument, I guess what you're advocating for is some kind of peer-to-peer sync solution across family member devices that would work anywhere. That's cool but I think it may a lot of technical complexity vs a cloud solution, and it still doesn't change the fact that you still have the issue above about switching as a group. It might be worth reviewing what dark pattern actually means - UI tricks to get people to do things they don't want to do. If people like a product enough that they convince others to use it as well, that's ... a good product? I get the data storage concern though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern
  - xoa 5y ago
    >to forcing people to migrate to their cloud only infrastructure ... fully SaaS A slight gentle correction. I criticize them elsewhere in this thread, but in fairness I have to point out that this isn't quite correct yet. It's still possible (though they've buried it) to buy a standalone perpetual license for the latest 1Password, run purely local vaults, or keep syncing via Dropbox, iCloud, or manually over WLAN. There isn't any hard tie to the 1Password.com service yet. Perhaps they'll put the kibosh on that in the future. And they can be and I will criticize them for not having better local sync options, which they clearly stopped bothering with in favor of their own cloud offering. But for the time being I've still got a fully local 1Password 7 license that works the same as every previous version.
    - umacontaparaohn 5y ago
      Well, until they intentionally break something like the 1password4 integration with the browser extention. And after asking why it broke they say: sorry you're out of luck but here is a shining new subscription just for you. Now you're forced to buy the new version just for the integration that has always worked fine.
varikin 5y ago
What gimmicks, tricks, and dark patterns are you referring to? I've been using 1Password for my personal accounts for probably close to 10 years and have been happy with it. There are some things I feel are clunky, but I've never felt like I was being tricked or deceived by the company.
- paxys 5y ago
  "It used to be free but now you have to pay" is really the only dark pattern they are guilty of.
  - selykg 5y ago
    To be clear, 1Password has never really been "free." It has always been a paid product. Aside from the mobile apps being made free with limited features, it was previously a paid app, then with the massive push to 1Password's service they made it a lot less free and back to paid again. If you really want to complain... complain about how they keep pushing for their subscription, making it harder and harder to find a one time purchase. Or their massive issues with multiple browser extensions that are a complete mess for the average person. Or how their usability has decreased substantially. Or how they're less a consumer product and more a business product these days.
  - umacontaparaohn 5y ago
    Where is your source about it being free? As far as I remember, I've paid for several versions and upgrades until they forced their crappy subscription service on us. Not sure about OP but I can see a clearly dark pattern by hiding the non subscription option to the point where I had to google how to acquire one. At this point I simply gave up and choose other option. If I have to pay yearly at least bitwarden gives me fair price and comparable service. Maybe 1pass is better than bitwarden but it's certainly not 4x better.
  - varikin 5y ago
    I don't think it was ever free. It went from standalone licenses to SaaS, but it was always a paid product.
chrisacky 5y ago
Are you confusing this company with LastPass? I made the same mistake until I realised they are entirely separate.
drcongo 5y ago
This is getting a lot of downvotes, but I agree with it to a certain degree. Have a look through the Agile Bits support forums and you'll find all the dark patterns you want - the most famous being their hiding of buy outright options to push you to subscription, and the crippling of Dropbox sync to try to push you to their proprietary sync service. I've used 1Password for well over a decade, but a lot of their tactics in the last couple of years left a real sour taste and promoted me to try out every alternative available. Luckily for Agile Bits, the alternatives are all appalling.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  Yup. After using 1Password since 2014, I'm now in the very painful process of migrating to LastPassXC and syncing locally with my NAS. The way they push you to use the cloud was incredibly souring. They lost a happy customer.
1cvmask 5y ago
What are the gimmicks, tricks and dark patterns you are referring to?
CodeIsTheEnd 5y ago
To respond to some of the sibling comments: 1Password originally operated on a licensing model, but has since switched to a membership model. It is still possible to purchase a single license, but they make it very difficult to do so. The option of a standalone license is not mentioned anywhere on their pricing page: https://1password.com/sign-up/ https://1password.com/sign-up/ As I understand it, only once you have downloaded the app and are logging in do they mention that standalone licenses are available. (But, at least on Mac, this option is only available on the version of the app downloaded directly from their site, and not the version downloaded from the Mac App Store.) This support thread shows some users' frustration with this, and their support team's insistence on pushing users to the subscription model: https://1password.community/discussion/102412/where-do-i-buy-the-standalone-license-for-ipassword-v7-for-mac https://1password.community/discussion/102412/where-do-i-buy... I'm not entirely certain of the differences between the subscription model and the standalone version, but I believe the primary difference is that the subscription model will automatically sync your passwords between multiple devices. You can achieve similar functionality with the standalone license version by storing your vault (1Password's password file) in iCloud or Dropbox, and relying on that for syncing. I use the Dropbox version and it works incredibly well, even on iOS! I think they also support Google Drive for syncing on desktop, but not on mobile. Certainly the syncing offered through their subscription model is valuable, but for users who have other options, it's just doesn't make sense. I gladly paid for a standalone license, and have purchased licenses for my parents as gifts; the product is incredible. The Chrome extension works great, and the app can be your 2FA device, so it will automatically fill in password forms and copy the 2FA code to your clipboard. It works just as well on iOS too.
- roustem 5y ago
  Thank you for your comment, @CodeIsTheEnd! We always built 1Password for ourselves. It is so much easier to develop a product that you use yourself every day. I haven't used the standalone version of 1Password for over 5 years now. The same is true for pretty much everyone working at 1Password. Why? Because the service is much much better and more than just simple syncing of data: - Account recovery for family and business team members - Easy sharing of passwords and documents - Vault permissions - Item history/automatic backups - Free family accounts for businesses - Travel mode None of these features are possible without a server doing its part. Roustem Founder of 1Password
Androider 5y ago
The company is clearly focusing entirely on their SaaS version, which just makes sense in this day and age. They provide the stand-alone version for people who know about and want to continue using it, but obviously they don't want to drive any new users to this end-of-life product. In my opinion, it's not a dark pattern, it's just softly winding down the old app. That's not an unreasonable thing to do. If you want a traditional app, there are other choices.

Hah. With the gimmicks, tricks, and dark patterns this company has pulled with consumer, what are the chances professionals would trust them with something like this?

alpha_squared 5y ago

I'm a subscriber, but unfamiliar with what you're referencing. Do you mind sharing?

wskinner 5y ago

Care to elaborate?

jagger27 5y ago

I thought AgileBits was pretty well respected around here. What dark patterns are you referring to?

dastx 5y ago
I'm assuming he's referring to their beginnings of being a mostly local password manager (iirc they also had a one-off lifetime purchase), to forcing people to migrate to their cloud only infrastructure with a relatively high subscription price. I'd never heard of 1Password before they were fully SaaS, but as I understand it, some of the original users were pretty upset with this move. Either way, I used to be a 1Password customer, and their product, at least on the Mac, was the most polished password manager.
- wferrell 5y ago
  What did you switch to if you stopped using 1Password?
  - dastx 5y ago
    Bitwarden. One of the big reasons for doing so was because when I left my company, they took my Mac away from me, so I invested in a new laptop, for me there was no way I was going for Windows or Mac. So Linux it is. 1Password at the time had extremely poor support for Linux - no desktop client, their 1PasswordX was missing a lot of features and was super slow too. I switched to Bitwarden because it's open source, and because they have a good enough Linux client. Their browser extension and desktop client doesn't come close to what 1Password provided on Mac, but it does the job. Bitwarden isn't without its issues, but at $10 a year, and its open source nature, it's worth every penny and then some.
    - dteare 5y ago
      Thanks for sharing. I’m sorry it took us so long to release a native Linux app. We have a great app for Linux now in beta and will move it to an official release shortly. https://blog.1password.com/1password-for-linux-beta-is-now-open/ https://blog.1password.com/1password-for-linux-beta-is-now-o... I hope you can give us another chance. —Dave 1Password Founder
      - seppin 5y ago
        Hi Dave. I understand that subscription is your future no matter what, but please don't cut off options for stand alone licenses and local syncing.
      - dastx 5y ago
        Thank you, I'm aware of the Linux client and it got me excited when it was announced, however since switching, OSS has become more and more important to me, so it's unlikely that I'll switch back.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - philsnow 5y ago
      You can self-host this unofficial version https://github.com/dani-garcia/bitwarden_rs https://github.com/dani-garcia/bitwarden_rs if you prefer. maybe not worth $10/month of your time amortized to set up, but it has been fire-and-forget for me. My kids have started accumulating more passwords than they can memorize (and their memorized passwords were terrible), so I wanted a family password manager. I considered using "1password for familes" which I have access to for free from my day job, but if/when I leave the company then I'll have to go back to paying for it. So far I greatly prefer the experience of bitwarden over 1password. I use the web vault, the native mac app, and the linux command line app (through a janky homegrown dmenu/xclip shell script), and I have no complaints at all.
- bombcar 5y ago
  It's exactly this - the original switch to SaaS was a high price to pay for basically what you already had if you had local sync/dropbox setup. They finally fixed many of the objections with the "family" SaaS subscription and it just works and the price may be "low enough" that I don't bother figuring out a way out of it - but it is still pretty much the perfect example of "locked in".
  - ssully 5y ago
    What do you mean by locked in? When I think of locked in, I imagine it being hard to cancel and move to another service. I switched to 1Password last year from LastPass and the first thing I checked was the process for exporting my data. It seemed on par with LassPass, which was very simple, so I made the switch.
    - bombcar 5y ago
      That's the locked in - they have all your passwords and (in theory) could make a change that makes it hard to extract.
      - djrogers 5y ago
        Using the term ‘locked in’ to mean ‘some day something maybe might lock me in’ is a huuuuuuge stretch. To the point that I’d say you’re wrong.
- anaerobicover 5y ago
  Yes, this. I don't have any problem with paying for updates, or even really a subscription. I have a problem with their hard push to "use our cloud", burying the abilities to not immediately create a cloud account, and the way they respond to customers in their forums when they ask about non-cloud options. Ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417832
- ruph123 5y ago
  I used 1Password for a long time. When they shifted to the SaaS model I left angrily. Over time I tried out several other programs such as Enpass (came close to the original 1pw), keepass varieties, Bitwarden but found myself back at 1Password this year. One big thing, which funny enough is another dark pattern I guess, is the family account feature. I allows me to take family members on and we can share certain passwords and I think even help recover an account. This is also important because 1PW is the most easy to use password manager and my mom was really struggling with Enpass.
  - npunt 5y ago
    A new feature that adds value is not a 'dark pattern'. Lets not be dramatic. Even moving from one-time to subscription isn't a 'dark pattern', its a business model move to shift to recurring revenue, which we know is something that businesses need to keep the lights on. You can debate the merits of it, but it's not a dark pattern in and of itself. HOW they execute that might be, but the change itself isn't. You just have a personal preference to not want to pay for it in a particular way.
    - ruph123 5y ago
      > A new feature that adds value is not a 'dark pattern'. Lets not be dramatic. Family plans are in my eyes. They log users more into the platform and makes it very difficult to switch. If you want to move away from Spotify, you now have to convince enough of the others to make it feasible. > Even moving from one-time to subscription isn't a 'dark pattern' I did not claim that it was one. I also was not even mad about recurring payments, to me the problematic change was that the data was now hosted on some other machine owned by the company who is producing the software (e.g. in theory single point of entry).
      - npunt 5y ago
        I'm trying to charitably understand what you're advocating for but it sounds like you're arguing that getting multiple people to use any app is criteria for dark pattern because once they do start using that app, to switch you have to convince them as a group. So.. should everyone use different apps? Or is a protocol the solution? As far as where data is stored, which sounds a bit like a different argument, I guess what you're advocating for is some kind of peer-to-peer sync solution across family member devices that would work anywhere. That's cool but I think it may a lot of technical complexity vs a cloud solution, and it still doesn't change the fact that you still have the issue above about switching as a group. It might be worth reviewing what dark pattern actually means - UI tricks to get people to do things they don't want to do. If people like a product enough that they convince others to use it as well, that's ... a good product? I get the data storage concern though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern
- xoa 5y ago
  >to forcing people to migrate to their cloud only infrastructure ... fully SaaS A slight gentle correction. I criticize them elsewhere in this thread, but in fairness I have to point out that this isn't quite correct yet. It's still possible (though they've buried it) to buy a standalone perpetual license for the latest 1Password, run purely local vaults, or keep syncing via Dropbox, iCloud, or manually over WLAN. There isn't any hard tie to the 1Password.com service yet. Perhaps they'll put the kibosh on that in the future. And they can be and I will criticize them for not having better local sync options, which they clearly stopped bothering with in favor of their own cloud offering. But for the time being I've still got a fully local 1Password 7 license that works the same as every previous version.
  - umacontaparaohn 5y ago
    Well, until they intentionally break something like the 1password4 integration with the browser extention. And after asking why it broke they say: sorry you're out of luck but here is a shining new subscription just for you. Now you're forced to buy the new version just for the integration that has always worked fine.

varikin 5y ago

What gimmicks, tricks, and dark patterns are you referring to? I've been using 1Password for my personal accounts for probably close to 10 years and have been happy with it. There are some things I feel are clunky, but I've never felt like I was being tricked or deceived by the company.

paxys 5y ago
"It used to be free but now you have to pay" is really the only dark pattern they are guilty of.
- selykg 5y ago
  To be clear, 1Password has never really been "free." It has always been a paid product. Aside from the mobile apps being made free with limited features, it was previously a paid app, then with the massive push to 1Password's service they made it a lot less free and back to paid again. If you really want to complain... complain about how they keep pushing for their subscription, making it harder and harder to find a one time purchase. Or their massive issues with multiple browser extensions that are a complete mess for the average person. Or how their usability has decreased substantially. Or how they're less a consumer product and more a business product these days.
- umacontaparaohn 5y ago
  Where is your source about it being free? As far as I remember, I've paid for several versions and upgrades until they forced their crappy subscription service on us. Not sure about OP but I can see a clearly dark pattern by hiding the non subscription option to the point where I had to google how to acquire one. At this point I simply gave up and choose other option. If I have to pay yearly at least bitwarden gives me fair price and comparable service. Maybe 1pass is better than bitwarden but it's certainly not 4x better.
- varikin 5y ago
  I don't think it was ever free. It went from standalone licenses to SaaS, but it was always a paid product.

chrisacky 5y ago

Are you confusing this company with LastPass? I made the same mistake until I realised they are entirely separate.

drcongo 5y ago

This is getting a lot of downvotes, but I agree with it to a certain degree. Have a look through the Agile Bits support forums and you'll find all the dark patterns you want - the most famous being their hiding of buy outright options to push you to subscription, and the crippling of Dropbox sync to try to push you to their proprietary sync service. I've used 1Password for well over a decade, but a lot of their tactics in the last couple of years left a real sour taste and promoted me to try out every alternative available. Luckily for Agile Bits, the alternatives are all appalling.

JohnWhigham 5y ago
Yup. After using 1Password since 2014, I'm now in the very painful process of migrating to LastPassXC and syncing locally with my NAS. The way they push you to use the cloud was incredibly souring. They lost a happy customer.

1cvmask 5y ago

What are the gimmicks, tricks and dark patterns you are referring to?

CodeIsTheEnd 5y ago

To respond to some of the sibling comments: 1Password originally operated on a licensing model, but has since switched to a membership model. It is still possible to purchase a single license, but they make it very difficult to do so. The option of a standalone license is not mentioned anywhere on their pricing page: https://1password.com/sign-up/ https://1password.com/sign-up/ As I understand it, only once you have downloaded the app and are logging in do they mention that standalone licenses are available. (But, at least on Mac, this option is only available on the version of the app downloaded directly from their site, and not the version downloaded from the Mac App Store.) This support thread shows some users' frustration with this, and their support team's insistence on pushing users to the subscription model: https://1password.community/discussion/102412/where-do-i-buy-the-standalone-license-for-ipassword-v7-for-mac https://1password.community/discussion/102412/where-do-i-buy... I'm not entirely certain of the differences between the subscription model and the standalone version, but I believe the primary difference is that the subscription model will automatically sync your passwords between multiple devices. You can achieve similar functionality with the standalone license version by storing your vault (1Password's password file) in iCloud or Dropbox, and relying on that for syncing. I use the Dropbox version and it works incredibly well, even on iOS! I think they also support Google Drive for syncing on desktop, but not on mobile. Certainly the syncing offered through their subscription model is valuable, but for users who have other options, it's just doesn't make sense. I gladly paid for a standalone license, and have purchased licenses for my parents as gifts; the product is incredible. The Chrome extension works great, and the app can be your 2FA device, so it will automatically fill in password forms and copy the 2FA code to your clipboard. It works just as well on iOS too.

roustem 5y ago
Thank you for your comment, @CodeIsTheEnd! We always built 1Password for ourselves. It is so much easier to develop a product that you use yourself every day. I haven't used the standalone version of 1Password for over 5 years now. The same is true for pretty much everyone working at 1Password. Why? Because the service is much much better and more than just simple syncing of data: - Account recovery for family and business team members - Easy sharing of passwords and documents - Vault permissions - Item history/automatic backups - Free family accounts for businesses - Travel mode None of these features are possible without a server doing its part. Roustem Founder of 1Password

Androider 5y ago

The company is clearly focusing entirely on their SaaS version, which just makes sense in this day and age. They provide the stand-alone version for people who know about and want to continue using it, but obviously they don't want to drive any new users to this end-of-life product. In my opinion, it's not a dark pattern, it's just softly winding down the old app. That's not an unreasonable thing to do. If you want a traditional app, there are other choices.