thank you.
Mozilla is one of the like 3 companies (thought the foundation is non profit) that I would trust my encrypted data with
Bitwarden open Source independently audited. Many good things.
The Firefox password manager can be secured with a master password that encrypts everything in your browser password store. Believe it’s pretty secure if you set this password otherwise it’s almost akin to having passwords stored in plain text.
+1 for bitwarden
It’s encrypted over Firefox Sync though, regardless of if you set a master password.
The master password is only needed if you don’t have complete physical security (or your machine is hacked)
Curious if OP was more interested in how secure the Sync feature is vs the manager itself. Sync requires trusting that Mozilla aren’t the bad guys.
It only uses Sync if you set up a Mozilla account. If you prefer not to do that, you can still set a Primary Password and the passwords will remain local on your machine, encrypted: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-firefox-securely-saves-passwords
Only if you have sync for passwords enabled though.
it’s pretty safe but bitwarden is much better
Well it’s better than Chrome’s if you don’t sync to your account, however I’d recommend you local password manager such as keepass
Keepass has what you’re looking for. Free, totally cross platform, no cloud unless you wanna put the database file on cloud storage, and can be very secure.
Or KeepassXC
Context: KeepassXC is the Linux/macOS port of Keepass. Although it is handled by a different team, it isn’t significantly different from the Windows app.
This is just bad information.
It’s also on windows and yes it has more features like totp compared to keepass. It’s much more actively developed and has been audited.
It’s also on windows and yes it has more features like totp compared to keepass.
Technically true, but the main focus is being on more platforms than just Windows. From their site:
Why KeePassXC instead of KeePass?
KeePass is a very proven and feature-rich password manager and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it. However, it is written in C# and therefore requires Microsoft’s .NET platform. On systems other than Windows, you can run KeePass using the Mono runtime libraries, but you won’t get the native look and feel which you are used to.
KeePassXC, on the other hand, is developed in C++ and runs natively on Linux, macOS and Windows giving you the best-possible platform integration.
Also, vanilla Keepass has totp.
Does it without a plug-in now?
Got it on my windows box, vanilla install. The function is a bit out-of-the-way but it’s there
Broswer != password manager. Will this notion please fucking die
Just bitwarden is all that’s needed to be said. Ohh, and yubikey
I use Bitwarden and, though all the features are very nice (self hosted Vaultwarden), the clients are really bad. The autofill is super inconsistent on Android. The app takes 20s+ to load on my Pixel 3a. You can’t trigger a sync from the quick autofill menu, you have to open the full app. The “desktop app” is just an embedded browser. I really want to like it, but it doesn’t make it easy.
The Firefox add-on works great, and I’ve never really needed more than that and the website. On Android I have a 3a too and not noticed this issue.
Not sure what you mean about no autofill on android, it definitely pops up on login fields for me and quickly lets me login with biometrics and then gives me my account. I only ever need to open up the app when I need to force it to sync if I’d just added a login on a different device and it hasn’t synced yet.
I agree with most of your points although the android app is fast for me. The autofill isn’t great I must stress.
The windows app and autofill need an overhaul.
IMO yes. It’s stored encrypted on their sync service, and you can additionally encrypt it locally too by setting a master password in FF settings.
Didn’t notice any mention that you can actually self host Firefox’s browser sync service yourself. Personally haven’t tried, but IIRC there’s setup docs on Mozilla’s github
I self hosted the sync service for awhile, but I think its broken now.
I personally switched from it to Keepass, it is cross-platform, open-source and pretty secure. It doesn’t come with cloud support, but I guess you could just put the file in some sort of cloud storage you trust. It also supports one-time authentication codes!
The big downside of this is when you need to log in to some web site when being away from your computer.
Then you have to transfer your entire database to some other computer and make sure it’s deleted afterwards in a secure way. Much more risky than using Bitwarden I believe.
I guess you can skip the deletion part if you trust there is no way to decrypt the db file in the future.
On the rare occasion I need that, I just run KeePassDX Portable from a flash drive.
But really it’s a bit risky to use any password manager on a device you don’t control.
At least my KeePass database is secured with my YubiKey so it’s not likely anyone will get in if they do stumble onto my DB file.
I tried keepass but then switched to vaultwarden.
I’ve been using keepass for years. I use syncthing to keep the copy of the db on my phone and laptop and backup synced.
Bitwarden
I don’t recommend using any browser’s in built manager. Look into Bitwarden or KeePassXC.
Do not use browser based password managers as they’re often not encrypted and are tied to that particular browser. Self host/use Bitwarden along with the web extension or KeyPassXC.
I use KeePassXC for some years now. Very happy with it, especially because there’s a version of it for almost every platform.
And the browser extension is great
