8 ms·

I’m Disappointed with 1Password

95 points by trungdq88 5y ago

cassac 5y ago
1Password is like everyone else who sells out. I bought their stuff before they had subscriptions, and now that they have subscriptions, they are crippling the product so that you have to pay up or ship out. When the time comes I’m going to Bitwarden.
- seanw444 5y ago
  Why not now? From what I've seen, Bitwarden is just as good, if not better, in every single way.
rvz 5y ago
Why not use Dashlane? At least they still have a desktop app for Mac (And it is not Electron) [0] [0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dashlane-password-manager/id517914548 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dashlane-password-manager/id51...
- gruez 5y ago
  Is there any point in going with proprietary password managers when there are plenty of open source alternatives available? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_password_managers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_password_managers
  - alphabettsy 5y ago
    I actually recommend Dashlane to friends and family who are non-technical because it’s much easier to use than any of the open source options I’ve seen.
    - ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
      Nope used both. Bitwarden is much easier.
      - rvz 5y ago
        Then I should expect you and others to be telling others to 'self-host' their passwords managers very easily. [0] Otherwise it is no different to using rest of them and you're better off with using the alternatives. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30071603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30071603
  - kafkaIncarnate 5y ago
    I'm very much a fan of password-store on that list: https://www.passwordstore.org/ https://www.passwordstore.org/ Worst case scenario it's basically just a wrapper for GPG, so you can always get at the password if you have access to your GPG keyring. I've also never had to directly install it on Linux, it seems to come pre-installed on most distros recently (I think it's a part of GNOME or something, even though I don't use that).
  - rvz 5y ago
    Not everyone is a tech person who can plays with their password manager in a terminal to just get the basic things working. Dashlane just works out of the box.
markdown 5y ago
They lost my support when they switched to fucking subscriptions. Bitwarden works fine.
- broth 5y ago
  What’s wrong with subscriptions?
  - alphabettsy 5y ago
    I think they should continue to allow users to buy a license and use your own sync as they did before. I had no problem paying for a license each time a major version was release. Honestly, I don’t feel like most here are really the majority of their target audience. I’ll continue using it though. I haven’t found anything that works as well for me.
  - mlindner 5y ago
    You buy a product to use it. Continuing to have to pay for something that already exists on my computer and doesn't require anything from them is just extortion. Subscriptions are for when you are buying a service. There is no service I am buying when using 1Password (previously).
    - paxys 5y ago
      Do you expect regular updates? Security patches (including for zero-days)? Sync across all your devices? Backup and restore? 2FA? All of this requires dedicated ongoing work from the service side, and they are giving it to you for literally $3/month.
      - eloisius 5y ago
        Security updates yes, but passwords are one of the most stable, least changing-parts of anything I do with a computer. File sync is also well understood and a commodity offering. In 35 years, the only thing that’s changed for me viz logging in is the introduction of TOTPs. I’d rather not have my password manager constantly changing except for security updates. I certainly don’t want to pay a a subscription service for a company to reshuffle the UI every five years. I’ve switched to KeePassXC and Strongbox on iOS. It’s every bit as good as 1Password was for the last ten years, and I don’t have to worry about the future of the product locking me into crappy “growth” decisions. I’ll be donating a similar subscription fee to the maintainers of KeePassXC that 1Password would ask for.
stanislavb 5y ago
I'd recommend giving a go to Bitwarden.
- philliphaydon 5y ago
  I used Bitwarden when I ran into issues with 1Password versions between Windows and OSX. I think I used Bitwarden for a week before I decided to pay as the experience was above and beyond what I had with 1Password. Think I've had it 3 years now.
- eek2121 5y ago
  I was going to strongly recommend the same thing, then I read the article and I realized the original article was foolish. They are complaining about electron. Regardless, use Bitwarden. It's free and open source. Sure, it has paid options, however, they are options. Nearly all functionality is available for free.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Why would it be foolish to complain about Electron?
  - coldtea 5y ago
    >then I read the article and I realized the original article was foolish. They are complaining about electron. A, the kind of foolish of not wanting to devote half a gig of RAM and slowdowns on a basic, and quite barebones, service, like a password manager.
TehShrike 5y ago
I know "local man doesn't notice anything" isn't a compelling story, but the transition didn't cause any noticeable changes for me. I'm still very happy to pay 1Password to be responsible for my most important data.
- CharlesW 5y ago
  Also FWIW, I haven't noticed any issues since the move to Electron, and continue to find it the best password manager for me, my family, and our myriad devices. As I type this, according to Activity Monitor there are 4 1Password processes using 0.0% of my CPU and about 225MB of my RAM.
  - bliteben 5y ago
    I've noticed it not connecting on windows, I have to open the addon window twice pretty often.
  - seanw444 5y ago
    While it's certainly gotten better, it still blows my mind that Electron can make an app as simple as a password manager use a quarter of a gig. I'll take a TUI at <30 MB tops any day. Or CLI.
    - CharlesW 5y ago
      > While it's certainly gotten better, it still blows my mind that Electron can make an app as simple as a password manager use a quarter of a gig. Does anyone recall what the pre-Electron version used on macOS?
- bluehatbrit 5y ago
  I've not noticed anything either, to be totally honest I actually prefer the new electron version. It's a nicer application in general and I've had no performance issues at all. I only wish I could get it on my old "take anywhere" macbook which for some reason is refusing to update to the latest macos version. I'd say my one general gripe with 1Password's current major offering is that it's awkward to backup my passwords outside of 1Password. It's possible, but requires figuring out my own solution rather than just having something baked in.
alphabettsy 5y ago
> ...the Chrome extension stopped connecting to the native app randomly. I’ve had this issue several times a year as long as I can remember so I’m not sure it’s related to anything new. Usually solved by restarting Chrome, sometimes 1P too.
- mh- 5y ago
  One cause is when Chrome has an update pending that you need to restart to complete. You can check this by going to the About page in Chrome.
  - alphabettsy 5y ago
    Yea. Familiar with that.
sairamkunala 5y ago
I let my subscription expire about 3 months ago. (CC handling changes in India, you know) I have only updated about 3-4 passwords out of 100s of items I store. This has been a realisation for me. 1pass, leaves the account in read only mode since it comes from your local storage anyway. I need to get familiarised with the Bitwarden UI, its not very similar to 1pass, so there is a adoption curve. Hosted Bitwarden with the rust variant option is an option to consider.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Hosted bitwarden is a... chore. I suggest just diving in, I don't see how anyone can't master bitwarden in 15-30 minutes (the cloud hosted version). There isn't that much - acount - password - password generator for random passwords - browser plugin - OS app - notes - paid version gives you password versioning and a couple of other goodies. I've used it on all 3 major platforms and my iphone for years without a hitch.
paxys 5y ago
Cool, but like..why is one person's bug report upvoted to the front page of HN?
- DantesKite 5y ago
  I was actually wondering about this. It only had 12 points at the time of this writing so I’m curious whether HackerNews weighs certain votes higher than others.
  - exolymph 5y ago
    Early votes are weighted higher than later votes. If you browse /new your upvotes are far more impactful. If you browse the front page, much more rare to make a difference to a submission's trajectory, unless it just got there, then you can help determine whether / how long it stays.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    I've only watched a few articles from the new queue for through their process of hitting the front page (and it's really great to be the first one to upvote something that gets there, more people should check out that queue!) But even with that limited knowledge, 12 points in 45 seems more than necessary to get something to the front page, at which point it has a mind of its own. And the low quality of previously great password managers certainly strikes a chord with me... BitWarden is the only one I can stand these days, but it's not great.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    People want to reiterate '1Password subscription bad' pretty much. It's the running theme for all recent 1Password related stories: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29993961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29993961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28145247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28145247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27194279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27194279
- poink 5y ago
  Because 1PW has managed to place themselves on the “wrong” side of multiple issues that the HN user base is passionate about in a kind of piss off nerds speedrun. Transitioning to subscriberware + converting your beloved native apps to Electron + raising a bunch of money so you can abandon your loyal users to chase the enterprise market is a trifecta that is catnip for this site’s front page.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
judge2020 5y ago
> I wish Apple Keychain is better so I can switch to use it completely. This would be nice, but it'd need to be fully-featured, including Windows support (Linux too, but i'd be doubtful) and non-Safari password autofill support (or they could re-introduce Safari to Windows, i'd be fine with that).
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Yeah I like the apple solution but I need something I can use across all platforms and phones. So Bitwarden it is.
- jurmous 5y ago
  iCloud Keychain has windows support and still gains features regularly. It now has for example MFA Totp code support and notes per password. Windows support: https://appletoolbox.com/how-to-manage-icloud-keychain-with-icloud-for-windows/ https://appletoolbox.com/how-to-manage-icloud-keychain-with-...
donohoe 5y ago
I really like 1Password but this hits very close to home. It used to be a solid app and now its browser integration have been more and more messed up for me these last few months. I’m having the same issues detailed here.
EMIRELADERO 5y ago
Does anyone know why 1Password's client application is closed-source? For a company so "modern" and insistent on transparency, it seems weird that they wouldn't even release the client app code as at least "source available". Don't get what they would be losing here. Same question with the server. Bitwarden seems to be doing just fine with an open-source/source-available approach.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  especially for a password program so you can see what they're up to.
GolDDranks 5y ago
I'm pretty than happy with self-hosted Bitwarden. It isn't perfect, but it works well enough.
hisyam 5y ago
I'm using 1password 6 and the Chrome classic extension simply stops working recently. Restarting Chrome or my laptop doesn't fix it.
- cjcampbell 5y ago
  I was recently troubleshooting why the classic extension had stopped working with 1Password 7. I received a message from support (who overlooked my version) that indicated that 1Password 6 would no longer work with Chrome as of 99.0.4844.74 due to a change in the code signing certificate. I did not get the impression that an update was coming to fix the issue.
2Gkashmiri 5y ago
Please use keepass.
- 15characterslon 5y ago
  It doesn't support syncing properly, if you use it on desktop + Android + iOS you have to trust three different app vendors, browser integration isn't nearly as good as 1Password, custom fields are badly integrated.
  - 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
    i have been operating keepass on my linux desktop and android for the last 3 years exclusively and before that, my laptop only. the "sync" isn't really a problem. you are making too much out of sync. passwords don't change much. you don't have to change/edit your entries every other week. i keep a live copy on my phone and a copy on the desktop. if i have to add an entry, i add that to the phone and use kde connect to send that file to the desktop. takes 2 seconds. when i open the desktop keepass, i am greeted with the updated file so its not a big deal. with keepass there isn't an issue with trusting vendors. they do not have internet access so what are they going to exfiltrate?
- cryptos 5y ago
  You'd probably need to trust more software vendords, but at least the synchronization in a single-user setup is pretty easy with some cloud storage service (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.).
helpfulclippy 5y ago
I used to be a 1p fanboy, but the company has really deteriorated from my point of view. Once upon a time, my password data was stored entirely locally in a format that was well-documented and which I could access using tools like openssl. In other words, I could be confident that they really were encrypting my data at rest because I controlled my data and could interact with that encryption myself. In time, they moved to a cloud-driven, subscription-based approach. I found this disconcerting since I could no longer see and control where my data was located or evaluate its encryption myself, but I was impressed enough with 1password's track record to believe that it retained a strong security culture. They began emphasizing their web- and browser-extension-based options more, especially for Linux, for which they did not have a desktop client at the time. Notably absent from this was an export feature. It remained in the Mac desktop app, but was completely missing from 1Password X. I noticed prominent 1password staff apologizing for the apparently unintentional lock-in situation created for some users by adding new platform support without also adding data export for those platforms. They promised it would be addressed soon. It wasn't. Last year, I went to evaluate whether it was even still possible to export passwords from the Mac client. I wanted to know that 1password was still a good tool, because my daughter was turning 10 and it was time to establish strong security habits. I wanted to be sure that what I was recommending still made sense. I was nervous. I had not actively used my Mac in years. I went to use the export feature, and found that it simply did not function. Extremely alarmed that I now had over 1,000 unique passwords stored in a database that I had no functioning means of exporting, I contacted support and outlined my issue and asked how I could get a plaintext copy of each of my passwords. I received a reply from a self-described "Astronomer of Support," who said: "Can you please let me know a little more about why you are wanting to export your data? Once I get a better understanding, I would be glad to help further from there! :)" I found this very troubling. I had supported 1password for years. I had recommended it to friends and family. I had bought it for some people. In a couple jobs, I required it of my reports. I did this on the belief that 1password had a strong value on privacy and security. I felt extremely foolish. While I had adopted 1password on the grounds that it had a locally-stored vault whose encryption was easy to audit, none of that was true anymore. The export feature I was told would be forthcoming on Linux had not materialized, and the feature on my Mac no longer functioned. 1password support was asking me to explain why I would even want access to my own data by some means other than their application in the first place. I asked the support guy how this would affect his troubleshooting, and he told me he just wanted to understand my use case since plaintext exports are a security hazard. Then he told me to download and run a program to upload a substantial amount of information about my system. There was no question as to whether I was OK with this, or an offer of any alternative. The answer, as it happened, was straightforward: I had an old version of 1password. I don't know why having an out-of-date version stopped data export from functioning, but it did. I was able to troubleshoot that without relying on the lengthy dossier that 1password's diagnostic tool had compiled, and the support guy could have done the same. Had 1password still been a company that valued people's privacy, he probably would have simply asked me to double-check the version number in the very first e-mail, rather than ask me pointed questions about why I wanted my data anyway, or telling me to install new telemetry software and give all this new data over to him. I wrote an email back to 1password support explaining my issues as a long-time customer who strongly values privacy. To their credit, they read and replied to my e-mail, mostly to tell me that they use end-to-end encryption and directing me to their whitepaper. I was offered a free year of service. By then, I'd imported my data to self-hosted Bitwarden, and I've never looked back. And in the year since then, I've only heard more and more negative comments about 1password, a company that was once spoken of very highly in the places I hang out.
D13Fd 5y ago
I have zero problem with paying for a subscription. But if the app doesn't work, I'm going somewhere else.
bradley_taunt 5y ago
I’ve recently jumped the 1Password ship myself. I work mostly on Mac and iOS, so it was a no-brainer to switch to Secrets[0]. One time purchase, indie devs, support for use on Windows / Linux etc. Been very happy thus far. [0]: https://outercorner.com/secrets-mac/ https://outercorner.com/secrets-mac/
- benhurmarcel 5y ago
  > support for use on Windows / Linux What do you mean? Secrets looks to be Apple-only no?
  - bradley_taunt 5y ago
    It allows you to access Secrets via browser extension on those platforms (if I remember correctly)
Uninen 5y ago
I've been a 1Password customer for over a decade. I've also brought them lots of consumer and business customers as I've taught people and companies I deal with to use password managers, and I thought 1Password hit the sweet spot of good usability and security. But I cancelled my account a couple of weeks ago. Their product has been worsening over time, and the last adventure of aligning themselves with the (wrong kind of) crypto bros was the final straw for me. I'm not really familiar with Bitwarden but it is open source and I managed to import all my data in one go from 1Password so I'm testing that for now. IT feels good to support open source at least.
- abandonliberty 5y ago
  I've been on Bitwarden for years. Wouldn't trade it for anything. Security source code must be open and provable, rather than trusting a vendor. Closed-source commercial vendors always face a moral hazard or risk of capture. It's a bit less slick than commercial offerings. Form fills don't work quite as well. Maybe once a year, it glitches. Import from Lastpass was surprisingly easy. I ran them side by side for a while. If you can, switch AND support this great product!
- Splatter 5y ago
  I'm a big fan of Bitwarden and have been a loyal user for years. I'm a convert from LastPass and haven't looked back. I'd say more about it but I suspect there are going to be lots of positive comments that will echo my thoughts.
- cdumler 5y ago
  If you want to host it yourself, Vaultwarden is an excellent self-host option.
retrofeel 5y ago
jlelse 5y ago
Just use Bitwarden.
junon 5y ago
I used 1password for maybe 7 years and the slew of recent changes and the slow deteriorating of their product quality, paired with the fact they ignore very simple features people have asked for for ages, made me switch to Bitwarden. It's not as polished but at least I'm not wasting money.
torstenvl 5y ago
For cloud-based, I think BitWarden is the obvious consensus. For local-first, I settled on Enpass. It's closed source and proprietary but the format is decently documented and they provided help in making an open-source database reader https://github.com/hazcod/enpass-cli https://github.com/hazcod/enpass-cli Now my passwords are somewhere I control, in a format I can read with open source tools, and sync is done by Dropbox/maestral. It's like being back on classic 1Password but slightly more stable and slightly less polished in the UI.
yashg 5y ago
Check out HexaVault.com. My product. Simple. Doesn't store passwords in cloud. Stores on your device. Simple key/value pair password manager.
- Komodai 5y ago
  Trashy self promo
rcarmo 5y ago
Again, my list of alternatives: https://taoofmac.com/space/apps/1password https://taoofmac.com/space/apps/1password KeePass is looking better with every release, but I have switched to Secrets since I like the UX and don’t want to run any kind of sync service myself.
- drcongo 5y ago
  Secrets is easily the best option for personal use, a really nice piece of software and a lot like using the last good version of 1Password.
- danbee 5y ago
  I switched to Secrets after reading your post and haven't regretted it.
jurmous 5y ago
I use Apple iCloud Keychain myself. In recent times it was expanded with direct access from settings, TOTP support, notes per password etc. And what maybe some people don’t know, it even has Windows support and a Chrome extension to use it within Chrome based browsers. (I myself am a Safari user though) At least with iCloud Keychain I will be certain it is well integrated into my Apple devices.
u2077 5y ago
I don’t know why anyone would put their passwords in the hands of any subscription service.
hammyhavoc 5y ago
Vaultwarden works nicely.
replwoacause 5y ago
Been loving Bitwarden for 2 years...

95 points by trungdq88 5y ago

1Password is like everyone else who sells out. I bought their stuff before they had subscriptions, and now that they have subscriptions, they are crippling the product so that you have to pay up or ship out. When the time comes I’m going to Bitwarden.

seanw444 5y ago
Why not now? From what I've seen, Bitwarden is just as good, if not better, in every single way.

rvz 5y ago

Why not use Dashlane? At least they still have a desktop app for Mac (And it is not Electron) [0] [0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dashlane-password-manager/id517914548 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dashlane-password-manager/id51...

gruez 5y ago
Is there any point in going with proprietary password managers when there are plenty of open source alternatives available? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_password_managers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_password_managers
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  I actually recommend Dashlane to friends and family who are non-technical because it’s much easier to use than any of the open source options I’ve seen.
  - ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
    Nope used both. Bitwarden is much easier.
    - rvz 5y ago
      Then I should expect you and others to be telling others to 'self-host' their passwords managers very easily. [0] Otherwise it is no different to using rest of them and you're better off with using the alternatives. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30071603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30071603
- kafkaIncarnate 5y ago
  I'm very much a fan of password-store on that list: https://www.passwordstore.org/ https://www.passwordstore.org/ Worst case scenario it's basically just a wrapper for GPG, so you can always get at the password if you have access to your GPG keyring. I've also never had to directly install it on Linux, it seems to come pre-installed on most distros recently (I think it's a part of GNOME or something, even though I don't use that).
- rvz 5y ago
  Not everyone is a tech person who can plays with their password manager in a terminal to just get the basic things working. Dashlane just works out of the box.

markdown 5y ago

They lost my support when they switched to fucking subscriptions. Bitwarden works fine.

broth 5y ago
What’s wrong with subscriptions?
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  I think they should continue to allow users to buy a license and use your own sync as they did before. I had no problem paying for a license each time a major version was release. Honestly, I don’t feel like most here are really the majority of their target audience. I’ll continue using it though. I haven’t found anything that works as well for me.
- mlindner 5y ago
  You buy a product to use it. Continuing to have to pay for something that already exists on my computer and doesn't require anything from them is just extortion. Subscriptions are for when you are buying a service. There is no service I am buying when using 1Password (previously).
  - paxys 5y ago
    Do you expect regular updates? Security patches (including for zero-days)? Sync across all your devices? Backup and restore? 2FA? All of this requires dedicated ongoing work from the service side, and they are giving it to you for literally $3/month.
    - eloisius 5y ago
      Security updates yes, but passwords are one of the most stable, least changing-parts of anything I do with a computer. File sync is also well understood and a commodity offering. In 35 years, the only thing that’s changed for me viz logging in is the introduction of TOTPs. I’d rather not have my password manager constantly changing except for security updates. I certainly don’t want to pay a a subscription service for a company to reshuffle the UI every five years. I’ve switched to KeePassXC and Strongbox on iOS. It’s every bit as good as 1Password was for the last ten years, and I don’t have to worry about the future of the product locking me into crappy “growth” decisions. I’ll be donating a similar subscription fee to the maintainers of KeePassXC that 1Password would ask for.

stanislavb 5y ago

I'd recommend giving a go to Bitwarden.

philliphaydon 5y ago
I used Bitwarden when I ran into issues with 1Password versions between Windows and OSX. I think I used Bitwarden for a week before I decided to pay as the experience was above and beyond what I had with 1Password. Think I've had it 3 years now.
eek2121 5y ago
I was going to strongly recommend the same thing, then I read the article and I realized the original article was foolish. They are complaining about electron. Regardless, use Bitwarden. It's free and open source. Sure, it has paid options, however, they are options. Nearly all functionality is available for free.
- epistasis 5y ago
  Why would it be foolish to complain about Electron?
- coldtea 5y ago
  >then I read the article and I realized the original article was foolish. They are complaining about electron. A, the kind of foolish of not wanting to devote half a gig of RAM and slowdowns on a basic, and quite barebones, service, like a password manager.

TehShrike 5y ago

I know "local man doesn't notice anything" isn't a compelling story, but the transition didn't cause any noticeable changes for me. I'm still very happy to pay 1Password to be responsible for my most important data.

CharlesW 5y ago
Also FWIW, I haven't noticed any issues since the move to Electron, and continue to find it the best password manager for me, my family, and our myriad devices. As I type this, according to Activity Monitor there are 4 1Password processes using 0.0% of my CPU and about 225MB of my RAM.
- bliteben 5y ago
  I've noticed it not connecting on windows, I have to open the addon window twice pretty often.
- seanw444 5y ago
  While it's certainly gotten better, it still blows my mind that Electron can make an app as simple as a password manager use a quarter of a gig. I'll take a TUI at <30 MB tops any day. Or CLI.
  - CharlesW 5y ago
    > While it's certainly gotten better, it still blows my mind that Electron can make an app as simple as a password manager use a quarter of a gig. Does anyone recall what the pre-Electron version used on macOS?
bluehatbrit 5y ago
I've not noticed anything either, to be totally honest I actually prefer the new electron version. It's a nicer application in general and I've had no performance issues at all. I only wish I could get it on my old "take anywhere" macbook which for some reason is refusing to update to the latest macos version. I'd say my one general gripe with 1Password's current major offering is that it's awkward to backup my passwords outside of 1Password. It's possible, but requires figuring out my own solution rather than just having something baked in.

alphabettsy 5y ago

> ...the Chrome extension stopped connecting to the native app randomly. I’ve had this issue several times a year as long as I can remember so I’m not sure it’s related to anything new. Usually solved by restarting Chrome, sometimes 1P too.

mh- 5y ago
One cause is when Chrome has an update pending that you need to restart to complete. You can check this by going to the About page in Chrome.
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  Yea. Familiar with that.

sairamkunala 5y ago

I let my subscription expire about 3 months ago. (CC handling changes in India, you know) I have only updated about 3-4 passwords out of 100s of items I store. This has been a realisation for me. 1pass, leaves the account in read only mode since it comes from your local storage anyway. I need to get familiarised with the Bitwarden UI, its not very similar to 1pass, so there is a adoption curve. Hosted Bitwarden with the rust variant option is an option to consider.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
Hosted bitwarden is a... chore. I suggest just diving in, I don't see how anyone can't master bitwarden in 15-30 minutes (the cloud hosted version). There isn't that much - acount - password - password generator for random passwords - browser plugin - OS app - notes - paid version gives you password versioning and a couple of other goodies. I've used it on all 3 major platforms and my iphone for years without a hitch.

paxys 5y ago

Cool, but like..why is one person's bug report upvoted to the front page of HN?

DantesKite 5y ago
I was actually wondering about this. It only had 12 points at the time of this writing so I’m curious whether HackerNews weighs certain votes higher than others.
- exolymph 5y ago
  Early votes are weighted higher than later votes. If you browse /new your upvotes are far more impactful. If you browse the front page, much more rare to make a difference to a submission's trajectory, unless it just got there, then you can help determine whether / how long it stays.
- epistasis 5y ago
  I've only watched a few articles from the new queue for through their process of hitting the front page (and it's really great to be the first one to upvote something that gets there, more people should check out that queue!) But even with that limited knowledge, 12 points in 45 seems more than necessary to get something to the front page, at which point it has a mind of its own. And the low quality of previously great password managers certainly strikes a chord with me... BitWarden is the only one I can stand these days, but it's not great.
- judge2020 5y ago
  People want to reiterate '1Password subscription bad' pretty much. It's the running theme for all recent 1Password related stories: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29993961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29993961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28145247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28145247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27194279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27194279
poink 5y ago
Because 1PW has managed to place themselves on the “wrong” side of multiple issues that the HN user base is passionate about in a kind of piss off nerds speedrun. Transitioning to subscriberware + converting your beloved native apps to Electron + raising a bunch of money so you can abandon your loyal users to chase the enterprise market is a trifecta that is catnip for this site’s front page.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

judge2020 5y ago

> I wish Apple Keychain is better so I can switch to use it completely. This would be nice, but it'd need to be fully-featured, including Windows support (Linux too, but i'd be doubtful) and non-Safari password autofill support (or they could re-introduce Safari to Windows, i'd be fine with that).

stjohnswarts 5y ago
Yeah I like the apple solution but I need something I can use across all platforms and phones. So Bitwarden it is.
jurmous 5y ago
iCloud Keychain has windows support and still gains features regularly. It now has for example MFA Totp code support and notes per password. Windows support: https://appletoolbox.com/how-to-manage-icloud-keychain-with-icloud-for-windows/ https://appletoolbox.com/how-to-manage-icloud-keychain-with-...

donohoe 5y ago

I really like 1Password but this hits very close to home. It used to be a solid app and now its browser integration have been more and more messed up for me these last few months. I’m having the same issues detailed here.

EMIRELADERO 5y ago

Does anyone know why 1Password's client application is closed-source? For a company so "modern" and insistent on transparency, it seems weird that they wouldn't even release the client app code as at least "source available". Don't get what they would be losing here. Same question with the server. Bitwarden seems to be doing just fine with an open-source/source-available approach.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
especially for a password program so you can see what they're up to.

GolDDranks 5y ago

I'm pretty than happy with self-hosted Bitwarden. It isn't perfect, but it works well enough.

hisyam 5y ago

I'm using 1password 6 and the Chrome classic extension simply stops working recently. Restarting Chrome or my laptop doesn't fix it.

cjcampbell 5y ago
I was recently troubleshooting why the classic extension had stopped working with 1Password 7. I received a message from support (who overlooked my version) that indicated that 1Password 6 would no longer work with Chrome as of 99.0.4844.74 due to a change in the code signing certificate. I did not get the impression that an update was coming to fix the issue.

2Gkashmiri 5y ago

Please use keepass.

15characterslon 5y ago
It doesn't support syncing properly, if you use it on desktop + Android + iOS you have to trust three different app vendors, browser integration isn't nearly as good as 1Password, custom fields are badly integrated.
- 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
  i have been operating keepass on my linux desktop and android for the last 3 years exclusively and before that, my laptop only. the "sync" isn't really a problem. you are making too much out of sync. passwords don't change much. you don't have to change/edit your entries every other week. i keep a live copy on my phone and a copy on the desktop. if i have to add an entry, i add that to the phone and use kde connect to send that file to the desktop. takes 2 seconds. when i open the desktop keepass, i am greeted with the updated file so its not a big deal. with keepass there isn't an issue with trusting vendors. they do not have internet access so what are they going to exfiltrate?
cryptos 5y ago
You'd probably need to trust more software vendords, but at least the synchronization in a single-user setup is pretty easy with some cloud storage service (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.).

helpfulclippy 5y ago

I used to be a 1p fanboy, but the company has really deteriorated from my point of view. Once upon a time, my password data was stored entirely locally in a format that was well-documented and which I could access using tools like openssl. In other words, I could be confident that they really were encrypting my data at rest because I controlled my data and could interact with that encryption myself. In time, they moved to a cloud-driven, subscription-based approach. I found this disconcerting since I could no longer see and control where my data was located or evaluate its encryption myself, but I was impressed enough with 1password's track record to believe that it retained a strong security culture. They began emphasizing their web- and browser-extension-based options more, especially for Linux, for which they did not have a desktop client at the time. Notably absent from this was an export feature. It remained in the Mac desktop app, but was completely missing from 1Password X. I noticed prominent 1password staff apologizing for the apparently unintentional lock-in situation created for some users by adding new platform support without also adding data export for those platforms. They promised it would be addressed soon. It wasn't. Last year, I went to evaluate whether it was even still possible to export passwords from the Mac client. I wanted to know that 1password was still a good tool, because my daughter was turning 10 and it was time to establish strong security habits. I wanted to be sure that what I was recommending still made sense. I was nervous. I had not actively used my Mac in years. I went to use the export feature, and found that it simply did not function. Extremely alarmed that I now had over 1,000 unique passwords stored in a database that I had no functioning means of exporting, I contacted support and outlined my issue and asked how I could get a plaintext copy of each of my passwords. I received a reply from a self-described "Astronomer of Support," who said: "Can you please let me know a little more about why you are wanting to export your data? Once I get a better understanding, I would be glad to help further from there! :)" I found this very troubling. I had supported 1password for years. I had recommended it to friends and family. I had bought it for some people. In a couple jobs, I required it of my reports. I did this on the belief that 1password had a strong value on privacy and security. I felt extremely foolish. While I had adopted 1password on the grounds that it had a locally-stored vault whose encryption was easy to audit, none of that was true anymore. The export feature I was told would be forthcoming on Linux had not materialized, and the feature on my Mac no longer functioned. 1password support was asking me to explain why I would even want access to my own data by some means other than their application in the first place. I asked the support guy how this would affect his troubleshooting, and he told me he just wanted to understand my use case since plaintext exports are a security hazard. Then he told me to download and run a program to upload a substantial amount of information about my system. There was no question as to whether I was OK with this, or an offer of any alternative. The answer, as it happened, was straightforward: I had an old version of 1password. I don't know why having an out-of-date version stopped data export from functioning, but it did. I was able to troubleshoot that without relying on the lengthy dossier that 1password's diagnostic tool had compiled, and the support guy could have done the same. Had 1password still been a company that valued people's privacy, he probably would have simply asked me to double-check the version number in the very first e-mail, rather than ask me pointed questions about why I wanted my data anyway, or telling me to install new telemetry software and give all this new data over to him. I wrote an email back to 1password support explaining my issues as a long-time customer who strongly values privacy. To their credit, they read and replied to my e-mail, mostly to tell me that they use end-to-end encryption and directing me to their whitepaper. I was offered a free year of service. By then, I'd imported my data to self-hosted Bitwarden, and I've never looked back. And in the year since then, I've only heard more and more negative comments about 1password, a company that was once spoken of very highly in the places I hang out.

D13Fd 5y ago

I have zero problem with paying for a subscription. But if the app doesn't work, I'm going somewhere else.

bradley_taunt 5y ago

I’ve recently jumped the 1Password ship myself. I work mostly on Mac and iOS, so it was a no-brainer to switch to Secrets[0]. One time purchase, indie devs, support for use on Windows / Linux etc. Been very happy thus far. [0]: https://outercorner.com/secrets-mac/ https://outercorner.com/secrets-mac/

benhurmarcel 5y ago
> support for use on Windows / Linux What do you mean? Secrets looks to be Apple-only no?
- bradley_taunt 5y ago
  It allows you to access Secrets via browser extension on those platforms (if I remember correctly)

Uninen 5y ago

I've been a 1Password customer for over a decade. I've also brought them lots of consumer and business customers as I've taught people and companies I deal with to use password managers, and I thought 1Password hit the sweet spot of good usability and security. But I cancelled my account a couple of weeks ago. Their product has been worsening over time, and the last adventure of aligning themselves with the (wrong kind of) crypto bros was the final straw for me. I'm not really familiar with Bitwarden but it is open source and I managed to import all my data in one go from 1Password so I'm testing that for now. IT feels good to support open source at least.

abandonliberty 5y ago
I've been on Bitwarden for years. Wouldn't trade it for anything. Security source code must be open and provable, rather than trusting a vendor. Closed-source commercial vendors always face a moral hazard or risk of capture. It's a bit less slick than commercial offerings. Form fills don't work quite as well. Maybe once a year, it glitches. Import from Lastpass was surprisingly easy. I ran them side by side for a while. If you can, switch AND support this great product!
Splatter 5y ago
I'm a big fan of Bitwarden and have been a loyal user for years. I'm a convert from LastPass and haven't looked back. I'd say more about it but I suspect there are going to be lots of positive comments that will echo my thoughts.
cdumler 5y ago
If you want to host it yourself, Vaultwarden is an excellent self-host option.

retrofeel 5y ago

jlelse 5y ago

Just use Bitwarden.

junon 5y ago

I used 1password for maybe 7 years and the slew of recent changes and the slow deteriorating of their product quality, paired with the fact they ignore very simple features people have asked for for ages, made me switch to Bitwarden. It's not as polished but at least I'm not wasting money.

torstenvl 5y ago

For cloud-based, I think BitWarden is the obvious consensus. For local-first, I settled on Enpass. It's closed source and proprietary but the format is decently documented and they provided help in making an open-source database reader https://github.com/hazcod/enpass-cli https://github.com/hazcod/enpass-cli Now my passwords are somewhere I control, in a format I can read with open source tools, and sync is done by Dropbox/maestral. It's like being back on classic 1Password but slightly more stable and slightly less polished in the UI.

yashg 5y ago

Check out HexaVault.com. My product. Simple. Doesn't store passwords in cloud. Stores on your device. Simple key/value pair password manager.

Komodai 5y ago
Trashy self promo

rcarmo 5y ago

Again, my list of alternatives: https://taoofmac.com/space/apps/1password https://taoofmac.com/space/apps/1password KeePass is looking better with every release, but I have switched to Secrets since I like the UX and don’t want to run any kind of sync service myself.

drcongo 5y ago
Secrets is easily the best option for personal use, a really nice piece of software and a lot like using the last good version of 1Password.
danbee 5y ago
I switched to Secrets after reading your post and haven't regretted it.

jurmous 5y ago

I use Apple iCloud Keychain myself. In recent times it was expanded with direct access from settings, TOTP support, notes per password etc. And what maybe some people don’t know, it even has Windows support and a Chrome extension to use it within Chrome based browsers. (I myself am a Safari user though) At least with iCloud Keychain I will be certain it is well integrated into my Apple devices.

u2077 5y ago

I don’t know why anyone would put their passwords in the hands of any subscription service.

hammyhavoc 5y ago

Vaultwarden works nicely.

replwoacause 5y ago

Been loving Bitwarden for 2 years...