coming from a combination of iCloud Keychain, Firefox, and a Notebook, I finally got 1Password which I am currently demoing (forced my girlfriend and her parents to join). It was such a relieve to suddenly know where everything goes that I wanted to have the same for my laptop at work. Because Bitwarden was somehow mentioned in every video and has a full featured free version I thought I’ll give it a try and - BAM - instant glory! I set up the account and actually said to myself „Wait, that’s it?“. Everything is just so simple, the interface is nice and neat… 1Password feels like something that was cool 10 years ago and then features got piled on top of other features. It’s a little messy. Of course it works great but I am somehow sold to Bitwarden‘s vibe, being open source with a nice community behind it, streamlined interface, I like it
Long story short - are there any features that you miss or that even make you regret switching from 1P to Bitwarden? Just want make sure I am not missing something before I tell everybody that they can remove the software I forced them into
Not sure if 1Password has it, but I am moving from Keeper, and the only thing I am missing so far is the built-in mechanism to change passwrods.
With Keeper I either:
1 - Get a question from the extension if I was updating the password and if I say yes it automatically changes for me.
2 - Bring the command to change password and it helps me with steps to change the password.
Both of these make it very hard for me to make a mistake. With bitwarden I need to do it manually which can be error prone. But this is the only downside to a lot of upsides like ease of use, lack intrusive ads to buy other products from them, cheaper premium and I prefer the look and feel. Keeper is a bit invasive and in some UIs it gets in the way. Bitwarden doesn’t force that.
thanks fo your thoughts!
Coming from “manual” passwords I naturally had a lot of doubles and variations, so I have changed (and still have to change) a lot of passwords. Using 1P only for about a week I might have missed it, but I don’t think there is such a feature. However, if you type in a different password manually it asks you if it should update the login. I guess changing passwords is a pain probably in most pw managers. But in 1P suggestion popups constantly got in the way of the password field. That’s really annoying. Like you said, ease of use and a clean UI is one strength of Bitwarden and that’s what got me hooked. I’ve already imported everything from 1P and will go with Bitwarden Premium.
Ok, my below comments will be about Bitwarden FREE. (Not sure if PREMIUM offers any improvement over the gripes I describe below.)
One thing I miss from 1Password is that when its browser extension is unlocked and you want to sign into a website, it will automatically offer to auto-fill the username/password just as you click into the login blank space. With Bitwarden you’d need to click on the extension icon and then select the login info and then Bitwarden fill it in for you. It’s just smoother and more convenient (less steps) in 1P.
Another thing I miss from 1Password is the password strength indicators. I really don’t understand why Bitwarden doesn’t incorporate that into its apps. With 1Password you can see how strong the password is on several levels: 1) When it generates it for you 2) When you generate your own password 3) It shows the strength of your existing passwords (Logins). All of this seems to be missing from Bitwarden, which is a huge minus in my opinion. Yes, they do offer a website where you can check your password strength, but that’s really cumbersome to use - no one will go check if their passwords are strong enough and go insert them one by one on that website.
but I have to say I really like the way the browser extension works, with the little number and not getting in the way. You can actually fill in a login with a keyboard shortcut (that I forgot ) which is quite handy.
I noticed too, that there are no password strength indicators. But then again using the generator all passwords are „fantastic“.
Got my premium subscription yesterday, primarily to support the devs and for the Watchtower features (nut sure what they are called in BW). Also secure storage is super useful for license files and stuff like that.
1P is great, but just not worth the extra money for me. Although it can do more than Bitwarden it somehow feels old and clunky.
People can turn on auto-fill in Bitwarden if they want to. I wouldn’t do it myself, but Auto-fill logins using the browser extension | Bitwarden Help & Support explains how to do it. It also explains the other options to fill in passwords. I very much like that fact that Bitwarden gives people several options.
Personally I glance at the Bitwarden indicator, to see if there is a login for a site, as well as glancing at the URL. If there is then I press Ctrl Shift L, easy peasy. If there is more than one login I either right-click and select the option, or cycle through them with Ctrl Shift L, depending on what takes my fancy.
Automatically changing passwords does not appeal to me, but we are all different.
I like to know what my passwords are, separately from any password manager. When I change a password I generally use Bitwarden to suggest one, make a note of it elsewhere, update Bitwarden and only then change the password. This may be slower than other methods, but I have a record in case anything goes wrong. To err is to be human, but to really foul up you need a computer.
I’m to old to trust “helpful” software, which is based on the idea that I don’t want to bother my pretty little head with “complicated” things and it will do it for me.
I moved from lastpass, I currently miss the overlay interface for autofill, and a more robust local application to eliminate the need of acessinf the web vault everytime i need to change anything i can´t in the browser extension, I also used norpass for some time, from them i miss the pretty and user friendly UI
I too am currently with 1PW and I also love Bitwarden (for the most part). I will tell you if you use the TOTP features in 1PW, you will miss that in BW. While BW does handle TOTP, it doesn’t do it nearly as well as 1PW… not even close. For example, BW will not auto paste it for you, but it does auto copy to the clipboard (if you have the setting enabled). The biggest issue is that if you have more than one OTP configured for the same domain then it might copy the wrong OTP… or it might copy the right one. Example: more than one Gmail account with TOTP enabled, may copy the other TOTP number forcing you to go back through the menus to copy the correct one.
There will be people who argue not to put all your eggs into one basket, yada yada yada. If someone cracks your master password you have much bigger problems.
One thing I do like a lot better in BW is the handling of custom fields. I use custom fields a lot and BW handles most of them like a champ but 1PW kind of struggles with it.
But… if you don’t want your password manager to (properly) handle OTP for you then BW is a great choice.
Edit: looks like they are finally starting to address this.
I never used TOTP and still don’t know exactly how it works (it’s on my list), but I’ll keep that in mind.
I canceled my 1P demo and deleted my family today There’s actually one feature I am missing: Watchtower. Since the report features weren’t part of the BW demo I didn’t catch that you can only check the reports in the browser. And I think you have to do it manually. A few days ago I receive a mail from Ubiquiti that they got hacked. When I opened up 1P I instantly got a alarm notification about that. That’s pretty awesome, I actually thought it would be the same in BW. You just can’t have it all…
It is a bit too manual, especially for the less technically versed users … ehem mom/dad … they’ll not get much benefit out of what is currently in the reports section.
) which is quite handy.
There’s actually one feature I am missing: Watchtower. Since the report features weren’t part of the BW demo I didn’t catch that you can only check the reports in the browser. And I think you have to do it manually. A few days ago I receive a mail from Ubiquiti that they got hacked. When I opened up 1P I instantly got a alarm notification about that. That’s pretty awesome, I actually thought it would be the same in BW. You just can’t have it all… 