Ask HN: What password managers (if any) do you recommend?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8866176

by sekasi • 12 years ago

1 6 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Dashlane, Lastpass, 1Password, they all have nice features. I'm using one of them, but I'm very interested to hear rationale behind your choice of password routines.

kesavkolla• 12 years ago

I'm using 1Password on my Mac and iPhone. So far it's great. I miss ubuntu version of it.

vitovito• 12 years ago

A few months ago, I did some evaluation and eventually settled on KeePass. I don't use any form filling; I open it up and copy-and-paste a password when I need it. I haven't found this to be terribly inconvenient, except on my phone. From my notes:

"I don't use the same browser everywhere, so just using browser sync isn't enough for me. (I also never save my passwords in my browsers, even on my personal machines.)

My primary computing devices are OS X (work), OS X (home), Windows Phone (phone). [Since then, I also added a Fire Phone, which has even fewer options.]

I have an iPad Mini (iOS 6 [now 8]) and an iPod Touch (iOS 7 [now 8]) but these are very much secondary devices. I had a Nexus 7 prior to the iPad Mini.

- 1Password seems to be the best option, hands down, if you're Apple-centric (I'm not).

- LastPass requires you to subscribe, yearly, to their syncing service if you want to use their mobile apps

- KeePass is cross-platform and open-source, and is about as usable as you'd expect an open source Mono app to be

- All Android clients seem to be second-tier to iOS clients

- All Windows Phone clients seem to be broken, missing features, or horribly ugly

- There don't appear to be any other options, except writing passwords down in a book I carry around with me, which isn't a terrible option, but I'd be deathly afraid of losing it.

So, KeePass it is.

[Then I evaluated a bunch of clients, and a bunch of syncing options, and settled on:]

- KeePassX 2.0 alpha on OS X.

- WinKee on Windows Phone.

- MiniKeePass on iOS.

- All are free and open source.

- The original KeePass Professional Edition client is probably fine if you're on Windows or Linux, and would let you use Firefox and Chrome plugins on those platforms, but it requires XQuartz and Mono on OS X.

- MacPass will probably be nice on OS X once it comes out of alpha.

- 7Pass Remake will probably be nice on Windows Phone once it comes out of alpha.

- You're on your own for syncing your password database .kdbx file, in all cases. I'm using OneDrive because I need Windows Phone support, but BitTorrent Sync or Dropbox might also be viable options for you.

[OneDrive is also available on Fire Phone, as is an Android KeePass client.]

References:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8279548

http://gizmodo.com/lastpass-vs-keepass-whats-the-best-online...

http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1psfmt/1password_vs_l...

http://agilebits.com/onepassword

http://lastpass.com

http://keepass.info "

eamonncarey• 12 years ago

I use Lastpass. It's reasonably light touch and easy to manage. With that said, Dashlane's new password changing feature is making me wonder if it's time to make a change...

tdburn• 12 years ago

LastPass released the same feature basically

Check it out:

https://blog.lastpass.com/2014/12/introducing-auto-password-...

lovelearning• 12 years ago

First started using PasswordSafe on Windows long back. Since I prefer syncing the databases manually, I need compatible programs on other platforms. So, I have PasswdSafe on Android and Password Gorilla on Ubuntu. I'm satisfied with all three and never evaluated anything else.

cyberviewer• 12 years ago

Try mitro :) https://www.mitro.co/

Ask HN: What password managers (if any) do you recommend?

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