I like your post. What I would add though is that “the old timers” were once “new users” (from a variety of alternatives, I had tried a couple of alternatives before settling on Bitwarden). I have no idea if I am typical of “the old timers” or not, but it took me some time to fully understand all the features of Bitwarden, for example the different ways to use it to login to things. With any new thing one does need to get used to it and complaining that it doesn’t work exactly the way the previous thing worked is not helpful (as you indicate).
I’m not sure that anyone thinks that “it would be wrong to change Bitwarden”, there were plenty of requests for changes before the influx. I would certainly like several changes, the question is rather around what changes these should be and what the priority is for each one. In the end that is something for Bitwarden, as it is their business.
It is also worth reminding “the old timers”, including myself, that I imagine many of the “new users” presumably felt pushed into making the change and that will have raised their personal temperature.
Having replied to this thread nearly 3 years ago (Jun’18) I thought I’d re-visit. A lot of thoughtful stuff!
Personally I started using LP a long time ago (probably when it was fairly new), then 3 years ago thought I’d look at alternatives. BW looked the best of the bunch, and I switched over for a while. There’s a lot I like - open-source (I’m a developer myself), multiple URLs, UI in many ways more flexible, TOTP (brilliant!), etc. But I found the lack of overlay (browser and mobile) was a bit of a killer and I reverted to LP.
With LP’s new charging structure I decided I would change to BW again, and try to live with the lack of overlay, which I’m doing. So I’m not a “newbie” wanting BW to be like LP, I like 99% of BW as it is, but overlay is a missing feature. This thread was started by Kyle as his own proposal!
Two examples of overlay problems:
PayPal in browser. It frequently presents a popup window to enter payment details, where you have to login. This has no toolbar so you can’t open the BW extension. You can use the shortcut to enter the last-used name/password, but if you have multiple PayPal accounts (as I do) then the last-used might not be the one you want this time. So you have to jump through a few hoops to make the login you want the last-used one.
Various banking apps on Android. They present a login screen, BW detects and shows the little popup. This switches context to BW, you click on the item to autofill and it switches back (this is time-consuming anyway). But because it’s been context-switched, the app has closed its login screen (presumably a “security” feature). Again requires hoop-jumping with clipboard and/or manual typing. App may not allow pasting into fields, even though they can be auto-filled. LP’s overlay, plus notification to open the overlay if auto-detect fails, is definitely superior.
These are real usability issues, and I believe do need addressing. I find it a bit odd that nothing’s been done given that Kyle proposed it 3 years ago.
Signed up for the community just to upvote this, I only have 1 thing to add.
When signing up here on bitwarden, I used the lastpass overlay to generate the password used for this site. Why? Because it’s right there in the password field. As long as it’s there and bitwarden is not, lastpass will always be front of mind.
Sorry folks, I really wanted to buy Bitwarden - but the lack of this feature is a dealbreaker.
Two reasons: Family members to make it easier for them, and for me personally, I have sites with 10+ logins which use multistep login and selecting the right account with BW is just a PITA. The ctrl-shift-L just isn’t reliable when the username is on one page and the password on the next.
I do wish Bitwarden had this feature, although I do find that using the toolbar instead is not inconvenient. I have also come across times when the LastPass overlay icon clashed with a Show Password toggle.
With regard to the discussion about “old” vs “new” users—with all due respect, I think there are people on both sides of it that are being opinionated.
When people use a particular software, they develop likes and dislikes about it. It is not unfair for people to criticize a product for not having benefits they enjoyed with its competitor. Additionally, I don’t think mocking people because “using the toolbar is too hard” adds to the discussion. It’s not that it’s too hard—it’s just markedly not as convenient for them. Berating people for requesting this is like berating someone for complaining that their previous car had volume controls on the steering wheel, which they used a lot, but the new one doesn’t. “Why don’t you just use the knob on the dash?!” you would say. That doesn’t further the discussion.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t classify not having this feature as a “deal breaker.” If there are problems using Bitwarden with certain websites, I would consider that a website-design flaw. And I do think getting upset that this feature isn’t implemented is making it a more serious issue than it needs to be.
There are some sites where I have 10+ accounts, this can make it challenging as BW does not seem to remember last account I used so if I am using the keyboard shortcut it starts from the top of the list and goes down. Also if I have a long list of detected accounts I end up having ot open the browser addin and then scroll to find the one I wanted to use, its something that I miss a lot from Dashlane as I think they handled this better.
That said I love most everything else about BW so far and hope there is either a way to deal with this that I don’t know about or they will develop a solution. My family, who do not have to deal with multiple logins for sites like I do, have been fine so far.
Update: Someone did remind me in another thread about the right click context menu. That does help for sure but its still not as elegant as the way Dashlane handles multiple accounts.
One of the only features I miss from Lastpass (aside from password generate overlay when making new accounts) Because of that, I will stay on LastPass for my business account until bitwarden has it too.
There is a lot of interest for this feature to be an optional one. But the consensus seems like most would love it. Looks like no one from Bitwarden has reached out.
Anyone know how to reach out to them and get a response from them?
