Get your passwords out of Bitwarden while you still can

https://www.osnews.com/story/145029/get-your-passwords-out-of-bitwarden-while-you-still-can/

by speckx • 2 months ago

224 198 2 months ago

eleventen3• 2 months ago

I think this is a little hyperbolic. The product may drop features, increase prices, and squeeze its free tier users. Everything enshittifies. But the idea that password export might disappear or be degraded? Nah. You'll be able to jump ship any time you want.

tremarley• 2 months ago

Never underestimate the lengths companies will go to, to enshittify their product to squeeze customers for money.

eleventen3• 2 months ago

Name one major password manager that blocks or paywalls export.

vallassy• 2 months ago

You'll be able to jump ship any time you want.

Famous last words...

AdmiralAsshat3• 2 months ago

I mean, LastPass was a train wreck after their breach, but they didn't go as far as trying to stop me from exporting my vault when I switched to BW.

The idea of BW doing a rug pull and suddenly removing the ability to export your vault I think would trigger a class-action lawsuit.

e403• 2 months ago

I don't know why this is framed as "jumping ship" ... of course you can stop using it any time (and use your periodic export to go elsewhere).

The real issue is potential data loss. Remember LastPass? Bought by someone and downhill it went, with multiple security incidents.

Someone12342• 2 months ago

I think the caution around Bitwarden is justified; and I think it is good that the message is getting out there. I will say "while you still can" is hyperbole, and will do more to distract from the larger (correct) point about Private Equity.

avgDev• 2 months ago

A tale as old as time, enshitification.

PaulHoule2• 2 months ago

Sometimes I think when a startup announces that they are being acquired their competitors have a meeting that morning and announce that they're going to start dialing for dollars. Since acquisitions almost always hurt customers I wonder if we can start creating "poison pills" that deter them.

oliculipolicula• 2 months ago

A successful sequel or reboot is its own poison pill

https://automaton-media.com/en/news/kadokawa-reports-sharp-d...

MostlyStable2• 2 months ago

While I'm not _happy_ about the messaging changes, those alone are not enough to do more than start paying closer attention. I highly, highly doubt that vault export would be the first meaningful feature change, and so I think there will be stronger signals of actual issues before then.

As I understand it, so far the only actual change is an announced increase in prices. Obviously, from the consumer perspective, cheaper is better, but this is a product where I think that a subscription plan makes sense (and the free tier, for now, still exists), and so I'm not going to get mad about price changes. Competitors exist and one doesn't think the new price is worth it, then switch to one of them (using the very-much-still-available vault export).

I don't think the warning is crazy or anything, but in my personal opinion it's a little stronger/earlier than is warranted and the current appropriate response is careful watching.

ktm5j2• 2 months ago

I hear you, but I feel like it's a better safe than sorry situation. Exporting your passwords takes two seconds. I think you can export to an encrypted file, but I just did a plain-text json file and gpg'd it. Can't hurt to play it safe.

throawayonthe• 2 months ago

if you have to do the 'encrypt single plaintext file' dance at least use age[0] in 2026

[0] https://age-encryption.org/

torben-friis• 2 months ago

The counterpoint would be that, if you feel like you need to carefully watch something that's supposed to take things off your mind, that's an issue.

poisonborz• 2 months ago

Clients are OSS, I wonder why nobody did a Vaultwarden-style fork of them yet that would watch over upstream changes.

subhobroto2• 2 months ago

Vaultwarden is a very lean implementation of Bitwarden but if you want to look into an alternative to the Bitwarden ecosystem, I recommend - AliasVault https://github.com/aliasvault/aliasvault - check it out!

jerf• 2 months ago

Until Bitwarden screws up it's going to be difficult for any fork to get much attention. If they do, that will the moment to launch a fork.

It's Bitwarden's game to lose. Forking is easy enough that there's no great need to pre-emptively fork.

cortesoft7• 2 months ago

Probably because there is no need to fork until you have to. Why do it prematurely and have to keep it up to date when you can just do it when it is needed?

pattilupone• 2 months ago

WOW. Quietly editing the 4-year-old blog post is super slimy, holy crap. Also seems like since this story was published, they edited the 4-year-old blog post again. The story points out

But the explanatory paragraph at the bottom of the same post still says the old ones: Inclusion and Transparency. Crandell’s name is still on it. The post now contradicts itself, and nobody wrote a new one.

Looking at the post right now, they've corrected it to Innovation and Trust.

chuckadams2• 2 months ago

Nothing says Trust like quietly and retroactively editing old blog posts. We have always been at war with EastAsia.

cjwoodall• 2 months ago

I wish companies that offer such a core technology and what not were at times entered into a public trust, similar to how some public lands are managed, that would protect them from private equity takeovers; I know it defeats the purpose of the companies in the first place (making money), and it probably would backfire in myriad worse ways than the problems it might solve... But I do think there are many options for how products, services and what not can be structured that give the people who maintain them what they need to thrive; without mining the users for money.

Overly idealistic thinking, maybe... but still thinking.

throwaway85825• 2 months ago

Public management exists for natural monopolies where no market competition is feasible. The role of the public entities is to protect competition. In this case that would be mandating import/export interoperability.

subhobroto2• 2 months ago

I'm a huge fan of AliasVault https://github.com/aliasvault/aliasvault - the author is responsive, receptive. The whole ecosystem is opensource.

Bitwarden/Vaultwarden had a good run but if someone's going to self-host Vaultwarden, I would encourage people to look into AliasVault instead. It's a complete opensource ecosystem.

cjs_ac2• 2 months ago

I store my passwords using this: https://www.passwordstore.org/

It's a shell script that stores passwords in a git repository, containing one file per entry. The files are encrypted using a GPG key. Because it's just a git repository, you can synchronise it between devices using whatever infrastructure you want. I use a FOSS client for it on iOS, and there was one for Android before I got an iPhone.

Depraved4482• 2 months ago

+1 for pass! I use this on my VPS to store secrets. I love that it syncs with GIT. Good stuff

ab71e5• 2 months ago

I'm interested in this, what do you use to host the git repo? Just a private repo on something like github or your own server? How do you backup your private key?

cjs_ac2• 2 months ago

I run Gitea on my own server. (I didn't switch to Forgejo because it's not in the Debian repositories.) I don't have a backup of my private key... I should do that.

wfleming• 2 months ago

I also use pass. Any forge you feel like is fine (I use gitlab). I backup my gpg key with `gpg —export-owner-trust` and store that backup elsewhere.

Pass has a pretty good ecosystem of plugins/other clients, as well. There are open source iOS/Android clients and browser extensions so once you’re setup the day-to-day experience is not far off from any of the popular hosted password managers.

My only real issue is the dependency on gpg, as it’s pretty long in the tooth and a hassle to operate. (If you are not comfortable using gpg, spend some time learning that before you go all-in on pass!) There’s a fork[1] which swaps gpg for age, but it hasn’t attracted enough attention to get a similar ecosystem of mobile clients/browser extensions, so it’s not a very practical choice IMHO.

[1] https://github.com/FiloSottile/passage

n0ot• 2 months ago

I tried using pass once. I like that it follows the Unix philosophy, and I want to like it, but the fact that all of your account names are visible in the clear is a deal breaker for me.

jmcphers• 2 months ago

I have used this for almost 10 years now. It's pretty barebones but it seems like the usable lifetime of commercial password managers is 4-5 years before they get enshittified, bought, discontinued, price-jacked, or otherwise made unsuitable for use. "pass" just keeps working.

marssaxman• 2 months ago

Thanks for the pointer. I use a similar system, but hadn't thought to put the password directory into a git repo.

jrm42• 2 months ago

Third-party password management as an isolated paid service (i.e. you don't get password management unless you pay specifically for the password management) is just a terribly bad idea all around.

Waiting for people to get this.

e403• 2 months ago

A bad idea for you. My non-technical family members can barely use 1Password and it is the easiest of the lot. The idea you promote is just not realistic.

baal80spam• 2 months ago

Not really. That something is convenient doesn't mean that it's a good idea. It's always a matter of convenience vs security.

donmcronald3• 2 months ago

Losing control and ownership of technology isn’t a prerequisite for ease of use. That’s just the narrative big tech has been selling for 20 years.

bilal4hmed• 2 months ago

This is getting so tiring. What are the other options out there now?

skarz• 2 months ago

ProtonPass

undeveloper• 2 months ago

vaultwarden (self hosted)

parliament324• 2 months ago

KeePassXC has always been the one true path.

culi6• 2 months ago

What is the option for people who want access to their passwords on their phones and don't wanna set up a complex or fragile sync regime

(I do use KeePassXC btw. I just think this is what GP's real question was)

culi6• 2 months ago

https://alternativeto.net/software/bitwarden--free-password-...

Honestly after years of resistance I've finally partially embraced Apple's solution and have to admit it works great. I love that Hide My Email is integrated into it so well too

Vaultwarden looks neat:

Lightweight, self-hosted server written in Rust, fully compatible with Bitwarden clients, implements the Bitwarden server API, supports organizations, attachments, web interface, website icon API, YubiKey, Duo, and multiple two-factor authentication options.

tfarias• 2 months ago

I've been recommending Bitwarden for a few years now and have also been paying a yearly sub since 2022, as I always thought 10$ was a really good value.

But with all this stuff coming out, I'm holding off on recommending it anymore; at least until everything calms down and the new value proposition is fully laid out.

Like other folks have said, I don't think it's yet time to migrate. That being said, it doesn't hurt to do an encrypted export for backup purposes, start looking at alternatives, and reach out to people I know use Bitwarden to do the same.

Keeping an eye out on how this develops.

solarkraft• 2 months ago

Agreed. I will continue using it as it currently fulfills my needs. But I’m not going to shout it at everybody I catch not using a password manager anymore. I’m just not willing to take responsibility for the changes they may make in the near future.

As an aside, since it seems like they’re trying to make money: The aforementioned enthusiasm has gotten it adopted at a workplace of mine. The experience hasn’t been good, so no recommendation here either.

Their moat was being a trusted name in FOSS and it’s a bit sad to see them going in the direction of abandoning it.

But somebody else will probably step up and build on the ruins, like vaultwarden already has. That’s the beauty of choosing FOSS in the first place.

scrollop• 2 months ago

You should try hosting it yourself in docker. Absurdly easy to do if you get an llm to do it and it works very, very well.

Hope they don't alter self hosting it.

horsawlarway• 2 months ago

If you're going to the trouble of self-hosting, I'd suggest just running vaultwarden.

https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden

It's entirely compatible with the clients. It also removes a lot of "rug-pull" potential, and gives you the ability to access all the nice features (ex - multi-org, multi-user, shared vaults, totp, etc...)

Honestly - part of the reason I like Bitwarden is that if they ever go full "enshittification", it's going to be relatively easy and straight-forward to just move entirely off their projects and onto open-source forks.

BrandoElFollito• 2 months ago

It is absurdly easy to fire off the docker container you mean.

Because you need to back up, verify backups, monitor availability, manage updates, manage MFA, and a zillion things.

Don't get me wrong, I work in hardcore, high tech IT for 30 years and I selfhost two dozen or so of services. It is far, very far from "absurdly easy" when you start .

Sure you can run a container on your pc, and hope for the best

arikrahman5• 2 months ago

You can get rid of the element of hope by using KeepassXC and syncthing. Bonus is you can use this FOSS stack completely offline.

prism56• 2 months ago

Cant tell if this is satire. But I'm not self hosting my passwords unless I fully understand exactly what's happening. Trusting that to an LLM without really understanding what's happening seems very risky to me.

mvdtnz• 2 months ago

This seems crazy to me. I have a home server and host lots of my own stuff. But a password manager is tier-0, it cannot fail me.

I need to access my accounts while I'm overseas - in fact I'm prompted for passwords far more often when I cross borders. I need my passwords at urgent moments like when I need to make a large bank transfer. I need passwords unexpectedly at all times when sessions expire or I need a new session for a device I've never logged in with.

If my home server went down for any reason at these critical moments it could be extremely bad. There are some kinds of outages I can't recover from without physically attending my server. And if I'm not very very careful there are some kinds of failures I cannot recover from at all - I have a working backup solution but so did every company that lost customer data before.

And this doesn't even touch on the security risk of hosting a database of credentials on a publicly available endpoint.

I need a trust hosted solution.

fnordian• 2 months ago

$10 was in a magical „don’t even think about it“ zone. When they increased the price I started thinking about it and switched to keepassxc.

steviedotboston• 2 months ago

This is a whole lot of FUD.

ChrisArchitect• 2 months ago

The quiet renovation at Bitwarden

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48163389

Humorist2290• 2 months ago

I'm taking a "wait and see" approach with Bitwarden. I've been a paying customer for a while, happy with it, and hoping the leadership changes won't be too user hostile. Still, a major reason I chose Bitwarden to begin with is they have a decent "Export" button, and all of this news reminded me that my offline backup of the vault was a few months old. Regardless of their product roadmap, they could have an incident tomorrow that keeps users away from their passwords -- offline backups are a good idea.

And Vaultwarden is nice. I've used it at work, hosted it myself, and as a user of the password manager I can say it's basically indistinguishable. But I don't really pay Bitwarden for a password manager -- I pay them for a secure sync of a password manager I can share with family members who can't figure out a VPN.

bitlevel2• 2 months ago

I have been paying for Bitwarden (BW) premium since 2019 and earlier this year decided to move away from BW due to the password filling becoming somewhat hit-and-miss (even on a fresh install), along with taking its time to do so.

Had previously used Enpass in the past and was pleased to see how much it had improved since then. Also allows me several choices when it comes to where I store my vaults. And fills passwords quickly and efficiently in comparison to BW.

So I've migrated fully to Enpass - clients everywhere, browser plugins available, and it just works.

With this news, it now looks as though my migration was somewhat prescient.

I also use KeypassXC as a backup on USB should it ever be needed.

bitlevel2• 2 months ago

Just to add - in my experience, exporting from Bitwarden loses a bunch of things - attachments, passkeys and a few obtuse items.

This isn't a good - particularly as passkeys are effectively just certs - migrators should be aware of those caveats.

donmcronald3• 2 months ago

I'm taking a "wait and see" approach with Bitwarden.

I won’t. The optics look bad and that alone is enough to show the leadership is either hostile to users or too inept to understand why their recent actions signal a change away from what people value in their product. If they don’t understand or care about the same things as the community / customers, there’s no reason to think they’ll make choices that continue to be a good value proposition for their customers.

The only thing that’s going to stop tech companies from pulling this crap is if a hint of private money coming in to ruin everything ends up ruining things before everyone gets to cash in. Basically, a mass exodus and bankruptcy would be the only outcome that makes the next company think twice about using the enshitiffication playbook.

We need some companies built around fair value instead of extortion and they need to be run like Steam. Steam has an unbreakable hold on gaming because they’ve never screwed their users.

stormed• 2 months ago

I only use Vaultwarden, which to my understanding is an open source reimplementation of Bitwarden's API. I personally haven't had any issues with it, not sure if it'll eventually stop being compatible with Bitwarden's official applications however.

AdmiralAsshat3• 2 months ago

The original creator of Bitwarden still works there as a CTO. I am curious whether he has any failsafes/poison pills in his contract when he took VC money that allows him to fork the product and start over in the event that they decide they want to lock everything down.

Or did he sign all of those rights away when he took the $100M "fuck you" VC funding in 2022.

cortesoft7• 2 months ago

Do you need a contract like that when the product is open source? The only thing he couldn’t keep would be the name.

AdmiralAsshat3• 2 months ago

There would be nothing preventing him in the source license, but I'm saying he may be prevented as part of the contract he signed when he sold the company.

HeartStrings• 2 months ago

KeepassXC

Terr_3• 2 months ago

So I have an admission here: I keep seeing HN stuff about these networked password managers and I don't quite understand the appeal.

Is it because everybody else is swapping between several different computers, and you need the synchronization?

I just have everything in KeepassXC, and the ciphertext is subject to the same kind of backup regime I use for other files, [edit: and also additionally] a copy kept on a USB stick in my pocket.

Angostura2• 2 months ago

Is it because everybody else is swapping between several different computers, and you need the synchronization?

.. and phones, and tablets. Yes

9x393• 2 months ago

Having a password manager synced to phone, desktop, laptop, browsers is handy. I used Keepass 10 years ago but I prefer integrated experiences now, particularly since I often pull them up on mobile.

Also consider teams or multiple teams across an org sharing secrets. Flat files are a tough sell, so these apps eliminate almost all the hassle. We pay for a lot of 1Password accounts, and I couldn’t imagine rolling our own solution.

markdown3• 2 months ago

The Apple Passwords app does all this just fine. The only thing it's missing is secure notes to store my 2FA recovery codes in.

teach• 2 months ago

In my case it's exactly that. I have a Linux gaming workstation, a work-issued (and managed) MacOS laptop and a Google-branded (Pixel) Android phone.

Bitwarden just works in all those places and the tech was, by all accounts, rock solid. AND I can pay for it instead of trying to leech off some privacy-ambiguous free tier.

mystifyingpoi• 2 months ago

I just have everything in KeepassXC

Me too, but I rarely add/edit anything in .kdbx file, it rarely changes. So I just keep a copy on my phone and use KeePassDroid to open it sometimes.

If you change/edit your passwords all the time, and you like autofill and I assume other features, networked solutions are much better.

cortesoft7• 2 months ago

Who doesn’t like autofill? It makes everything SO MUCH easier.

And it isn’t about changing/editing passwords all the time, it is about all the new passwords that are constantly being added.

smw• 2 months ago

USB sticks are infamously unreliable, not a great backup plan

Terr_3• 2 months ago

I realize the wording in my comment was a little ambiguous, but don't worry, that's in addition to my files in general. (Restic, Backblaze B2, memorized passwords/keys, regular integrity checks of remote data.)

After all, even with godlike storage-media on my keychain, it would still be susceptible to a mugger or falling down a deep hole. Until that happens, it provides redundancy and convenience, provided I can bring it to a trustworthy computer.

kqp• 2 months ago

It’s phones, mainly. People do also have multiple other devices, yes. For me another big pro is having a realtime offsite backup and being able to survive simultaneous loss of all my devices, which is plausible in correlated scenarios like a burglary, fire, mugging, car crash, etc, but I don’t know how much others think of that one.

The people I know who use KeePass live like they’re disabled. You ask them to sign up for something and they need to schedule a half hour for it two weeks out. Ask them to use a website and they need to wait until they’re home because their biweekly manual data transfer was put off because of whatever. And if they ever drop their phone, it’s this totally unforeseeable panic they’re still recovering from two months later. I’m far from convinced it must be like this, but I’m also far from convinced that most KeePass people—or people using any other strategy—have really thought this through.

NoGravitas2• 2 months ago

Weird. I keep my KeePass database on NextCloud, and the only difference between home and phone is that on a bad network I may need a few seconds for KeePassDX on the phone to decide to use its cached copy of the database rather than the latest one. It would probably be even smoother if I used Syncthing. I assume non-technical people ought at least be able to put their KeePass files on DropBox?

microtonal• 2 months ago

Multiple devices and family sharing. My wife and I share several accounts, so it's really nice that we can move them between private and shared vaults on 1Password.

parliament324• 2 months ago

My KeePassXC database auto-syncs to my Nextcloud instance. Nextcloud client on PCs, Keepass2Android on my phone, and it's the same end result as Bitwarden but without the shenanigans.

webstrand• 2 months ago

Do you have a solution for auto-merging conflicting changes? Because I think that's the real difference, editing on a laptop and on a desktop before the sync can occur, can cause data-loss (for my potentially naive use of keepassxc anyway).

culi6• 2 months ago

USB stick in your pocket sounds nice but what happens when you drop your keys and it cracks or you get caught in a rain storm and it gets soaked?

Terr_3• 2 months ago

Someone else made it similar comment, so I clarified the phrasing of my original post. The main backup of allll my decades of digital junk is independent and happens elsewhere.

Even if I had a USB-stick of magical capacity and reliability, I wouldn't want to have to remember to connect and disconnect it constantly.

dpoloncsak• 2 months ago

Then the copies that exist on the USB are fried but the original that live at home on your desktop/laptop are fine?

vablings• 2 months ago

I swap between my phone and my computer. Sometimes I need to get an account password on a workstation, and I can just login online rather than typing several lengthy generated passwords.

Most of the workstations I use completely block USB storage devices (but not fido2 keys!)

What would be super nice is to have USB wedge that I can just send my passwords from my phone to any computer like this https://www.inputstick.com/ (Expensive, sold out and also doesn't ship to the USA)

pavon• 2 months ago

Syncing is a huge part, UX is another. I was using KeePass on my desktop for several years before I met my wife, and having her use it was a complete failure. She did not like the workflow. Having to open another another tool, login, search for the correct site, and copy/paste the password was too much friction. And that was when things worked.

Syncing was an utter disaster. Inevitably something would cause syncs to be delayed, and then there would be a conflict and one of our changes would be silently lost. We were constantly going to lookup a password we entered, and finding it was not there anymore, at which point I would have to dig through sync conflict backup files and manually reenter the passwords that were lost, or go through the password reset flow for the sites. It was a giant mess, and that was just with two desktops and a laptop. I was using btsync at the time but all the issues I encountered apply to any file based synchronization, like syncthing, nextcloud or dropbox. Performing whole database file synchronization is simply not the right approach for password safe.

I eventually switched over to self-hosted BitWarden with the browser plugin and it has been much smoother.

marcosdumay• 2 months ago

I used to use syncthing to solve that problem, until the developer dropped the distribution because of the Google's anti-social behavior.

But the interface of every software on a phone is so atrocious that I have never actually seen any benefit from having a password manager there that I could copy stuff from. So now I just don't have it, and haven't seen any loss yet.

That said, I store way more low-value passwords on the Firefox manager (that is synchronized) than high-value ones on the offline manager.

cortesoft7• 2 months ago

I use vaultwarden hosted on my own server.

I use it to sync between my phone, tablet, laptop, and two desktops.

I want to be able to add a login from any of those, and have it be updated on all of them.

I might have more machines than most, but everyone has at least a computer and a phone, seems reasonable to want to link those two.

eviks2• 2 months ago

everybody else is swapping between several different computers, and you need the synchronization?

So you do understand it!

TN1ck• 2 months ago

I switched to Apple Passwords this week. Really good passkey support, 2FA support, best iOS integration. You can even share passwords with others. Sadly no first party cli support. If you only use Apple devices, it’s really solid.

WolfeReader• 2 months ago

"If you only use Apple devices, it’s really solid."

It's not a good idea to become dependent on a single corporation's products.

Shank• 2 months ago

You can leave via Strongbox (a KeePassXC client), which supports the new export system that includes Passkeys.

CharlesW• 2 months ago

You can eject whenever you like: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/export-passwords-iphf...

Passkeys too: https://sixcolors.com/post/2025/09/export-keys-securely-from...

fidotron• 2 months ago

Surely they have their reasons, but if they made Linux support work I suspect a lot of the dev community would jump. This household certainly would.

chuckadams2• 2 months ago

I only use Apple devices myself normally, but if I'm stranded out in the middle of nowhere and have to borrow someone's Android phone or Windows box in order to connect to important stuff like my bank, I'd really rather not be out of luck. Same reason I don't self-host my vault.

markdown3• 2 months ago

The only thing it's missing for me is secure notes for me to store my 2FA recovery codes in. So I mainly use Apple Passwords now, but still keep Bitwarden going for secure notes.

randyrand• 2 months ago

Same here! Switched over for the passkey support.

sys32768• 2 months ago

We were just about to go to BitWarden from KeePass.

craigmart3• 2 months ago

This is an incredible overraction over a minor change that did not even happen. You can still find "Always free" in the pricing line of the very same page everyone keeps linking as proof https://bitwarden.com/products/personal/#whats-the-differenc...

Edit: it actually disappeared for some time but they put it back on May 18

snapshot from May 15: https://web.archive.org/web/20260515190646/https://bitwarden...

snapshot from May 18: https://web.archive.org/web/20260518183728/https://bitwarden...

Angostura2• 2 months ago

Well it did happen - and then unhappened when people noticed.

craigmart3• 2 months ago

I had checked as soon as I found out about the news the other day and it was there. I just checked on wayback machine and you're right, it was removed for some time. However, if they're willing to put back that claim immediately, I doubt that their intention was to drop the free plan anytime soon, but probably it was to incentivize people to use the paid plans. Enshittification must happen sooner or later afterall, but fortunately vaultwarden exists and the export feature is highly unlikely gonna be removed immediately as the free plan disappears, so people could just switch to a third-party or self-hosted backend as soon as that happens.

mort96• 2 months ago

There have been plenty of cases like this over time too. Company makes controversial change. Company rolls it back after outrage. Company slowly shifts over time until they've restored what's essentially the original controversial change.

When a company tells you their intention by announcing a change, it's often a good idea to listen. Even if their PR department does some good cleanup work in the aftermath.

cortesoft7• 2 months ago

So what does it matter?

If they are going to make it not free, they can just remove it right before they make it not free.

If it was somehow a binding promise, then it doesn’t matter if they remove it or not, the promise was already made.

If it isn’t a binding promise, then it doesn’t matter if they remove it or not, the promise was not binding anyway.

chrismorgan• 2 months ago

The page addresses this:

The “Always free” motto quietly reappeared on the site after its removal was uncovered and went viral on Fedi.

(And the linked article gives evidence: <https://blog.ppb1701.com/the-quiet-renovation-at-bitwarden#:...>.)

daveguy• 2 months ago

I'm not seeing "Always free" on that page browsing from mobile. Also, it breaks my back button. Yeah... I'm going to need to switch.

anonymousab• 2 months ago

It is not an overreaction at all to them replacing the principled leader who promised things with the vulture leader whose job and job history is primarily to enshittify things and sell them off.

halJordan• 2 months ago

I dont think its an over reaction. It's pretty common to lock in users by removing or imposing cost on exports. Having an export from today is a lot better than having nothing in 5 years when bitwarden disables exports

Esophagus48• 2 months ago

in 5 years when bitwarden disables exports

i think this is the overreaction - getting worked up about these sort of risks in general isn’t worth your time.

Otherwise you’d end up self-hosting everything strictly on OSS from maintainers you personally know and trust.

This is like someone saying, “don’t use AWS because they might raise prices some day”

Meph5042• 2 months ago

Can you name a single password vault that has removed the ability to export, I would say it is a bit of wild speculation to assume this would happen. Even more so as there seems to only be anecdotal and speculative evidence this would happen.

Between the law suits, and the brand damage, there is likely very little upside for a company entertaining this idea.

wat10000• 2 months ago

How is it an incredible overreaction? It's not like switching password managers is particularly arduous or expensive.

KetoManx64• 2 months ago

I need to: - Replace the extension and login on all of my browsers on all my devices - replace the desktop application/app on all my devices - go through and rework all the scripts that I use to automatically pull passaords from Bitwarden using the API and hope that the replacement has a good API

Nah, I think I'll stick with and keep paying/supporting Bitwarden.

mrkeen• 2 months ago

My last job was for a product which launched with a promise of a free tier forever, which they removed a year or two ago.

SubiculumCode• 2 months ago

Yes, there are signs of an oncoming enshitification, and these types of articles gaining traction is good because it sends a signal to the company of potential consequences....but at the same time, the evidence supporting Bitwarden enshitification is pretty weak at this point. There are degrees here, not just either/or, on/off, good/shit.

ranger207• 2 months ago

My company just finished switching from LastPass to Bitwarden. Just in time for that to become terrible too it looks like lol

abfan1127• 2 months ago

I've been using LastPass for years. I really like it. Why did you switch away?

nacs• 2 months ago

Lastpass has had multiple large breaches, especially after LogMeIn bought them out

culi6• 2 months ago

My old company switched through 4 different managers in the span of 3 months. They switched to LastPass just before all the seemingly endless breaches started. I think they were willing to weather it at first but things just got worse and worse. I think they also ended up with Bitwarden

VLM• 2 months ago

"This way your passwords are truly yours"

They were never yours, and zillions of people you don't know have access to them.

nickburns• 2 months ago

Anyone not already using KeePass (or KeePassXC) has been doing it wrong for at least a decade.

KeePass2Android Offline and KeePassium on mobile.

normalaccess• 2 months ago

For TRUE offline password storage use "Off The Grid". A cryptographically secure paper based password generator created by Steve Gibson from he Security Now podcast.

https://www.grc.com/offthegrid.htm

fpauser• 2 months ago

Thats why I use vaultwarden. I also like the fact, that vaultwarden is written in rust and does not consume a lot of resources, which is great for selfhosting.

9x393• 2 months ago

Serious question - how come free is a requirement for a password manager? Everyone's gotta eat, including the maintainers of password managers.

Tech has generous TC, lots of high-end laptops and phones worth thousands, AI & cloud spend, and yet the only acceptable price for secrets management is $0 it seems at times.

culi6• 2 months ago

They promised an "always free" option. People committed to the service based on that.

Many companies offer a free tier and a paid tier and are willing to incur the cost of users who will never convert. If a company doesn't actually intend to keep it "always free" they shouldn't make the promise in the first place

gregoriol• 2 months ago

I think a company has to be able to change its commitment, but should not screw users at the same time. For example, if they want to remove the free plan, why not, strategy can change with context, the world is moving around the company, so then remove it for new users not existing ones and it's all good.

cocoa19• 2 months ago

I’ve been a paying user for years, but the free tier change announcement is a sign of the enshittification to come.

It means the old guard is moving away and potentially starting initiatives not in the best interest of the user. In the worst case scenario they will sell my data or introduce stupid changes that risk security.

fontain• 2 months ago

Passwords are critical, losing them because you forget to pay or run out of money would be a disaster. I suspect they would still provide access in read only mode to non-paying users so it wouldn’t be a disaster if they didn’t offer a free version but I think it’s pretty easy to see why someone thinks it should always have a free offering.

eviks2• 2 months ago

That's what the backups are for, and also local password copies remain even without internet/subscription?

AlexandrB• 2 months ago

For me it's not that it has to be free, but that it can't be a subscription service or cloud-hosted-only. It's why I left 1Password. I don't like trusting my password management to the whims of mercurial business decisions. It's only a matter of time until private equity smells blood in the water with this product category and starts "extracting value" through acquisitions and arbitrary price increases.

Esophagus48• 2 months ago

It's only a matter of time until private equity smells blood in the water with this product category and starts "extracting value" through acquisitions and arbitrary price increases.

My advice would be… If that happens, you can worry about it then.

It seems you could lose a lot of time and sleep protecting yourself against a doomsday scenario that will probably never happen.

hnarn2• 2 months ago

It’s about the backpedaling. No one says it has to be free, they said that. They just have to keep their promise.

RHSeeger• 2 months ago

And, honestly, if they came out with a statement that said (effectively), "Look, we're losing money here... we just _can't_ support free going forward. Here's our plan" that would be understandable. Sometimes you have a plan/goal, and you realize later that you were wrong and things need to change. But that's not what they did.

nekzn• 2 months ago

If I had to pay for everything I use.

sph• 2 months ago

I pay for my email and the vault that contains all my passwords. Be smart with your money, not stingy. $10 (is it still? No idea) a year is an absolute nonfactor for most of the world.

donmcronald3• 2 months ago

It doesn’t have to be free, but it can’t be set up so they can take it away from me. I self-host Vaultwarden to get that right now. Even if they break client compatibility, I still have the web vault with access to my passwords.

As soon as a company positions themselves to hold your data hostage, assume they will. I have no problem paying, but I’m not going to pay anyone trying to trap me. That’s the goal of most of these tech companies now.

My opinion and stubbornness doesn’t matter though. Identity control is getting lobbied into government legislation everywhere. Everyone’s going to pay no matter what, probably twice; once directly, once via taxes.

colordrops• 2 months ago

I knew when I started hearing ads for BitWarden on NPR that the good times were over.

arikrahman5• 2 months ago

Just switched to KeepassXC and syncthing. Transferring keyfiles over LocalSend. This has been a great local FOSS way to keep autonomy over secrets, without even needing internet.

SilverElfin• 2 months ago

All these companies are being bought by PE right? So what's a safe vendor to use?

blablabla123• 2 months ago

The last months didn't make Bitwarden look very good. On the other hand, what about the competition? Sure there's KeePassXC but that's essentially local. Bitwarden even has Send to quickly share with anyone.

I might self-host something at some point. But even choosing something seems a menial task, not to speak of setting it actually up...

aryan14• 2 months ago

You can host your keepass db file anywhere you like, whether that’s google drive or on a hard drive.

nullbyte• 2 months ago

Since Bitwarden is open source, can't somebody create a community-driven fork? Maybe a self hosted option?

28304283409234• 2 months ago

Somebody did: https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden

cortesoft7• 2 months ago

Someone can, and did

rootsudo• 2 months ago

It’s good to review, but what is the risk if you do become a paying customer?

Paying mean they have revenue, an interest to keep it secure and innovate more.

I recall last pass and the last pass breech and the class action from that but that resulted from improper crypto rollout.

Would the same risk happen with Bitwarden?

gbell12• 2 months ago

vim has an encryption feature (:help encryption). With some AutoCommands, keeping your own encrypted password list becomes painless. On other platforms (phone), enter your 12 or so passwords once and let them store them.

gaws• 2 months ago

The great thing about Bitwarden is its ability to sync passwords between multiple devices seamlessly. KeePassXC is the next move here, and I'd like to know how people made syncing work, especially for iPhone users.

Get your passwords out of Bitwarden while you still can

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