You bring up a good point with utilities like Bitwarden and Proton Mail; things that look nice and have good functionality attract the average user much more easily.
Last I checked, Bitwarden doesn’t have any way to hit a hotkey and insert login credentials in the current app? It also can’t be unlocked with biometrics?
Those aren’t “nice” features, they’re baseline features that every password manager needs to have. I don’t just type passwords into a browser, so a browser extension alone isn’t enough. And I’m not typing my umpteen character long password fifty times a day, there needs to be biometrics.
I will always choose open source software over closed source software - but not if it means choosing mediocre software over good software.
At least with android 13, you can choose the bitwarden app as your default autofill option, and it will fill login info in apps/websites/etc. That being said, I’ve noticed sometimes it won’t pop up immediately, but it’s by far the minority of situations where it does that.
Bitwarden 100% has biometric unlock (at least on Android, can’t speak for other platforms); as mentioned by @pattern, you can set it up to autofill login info in apps and websites. It does sometimes take a bit of time to show up, though.
Anecdotal experience, I know, but I managed to cure my wife of her habit of storing passwords in plaintext on her computer by moving her to Bitwarden, and I’ve had very little in the way of tech support to deal with in that area ever since, so at least for me it passes the “good for non-tech savvy folks” test.
On the app page Bitwarden has the typical biometric symbols. And other FOSS alternatives also have biometric unlock. I use Keepass for example. On my desktop computer it is pretty easy to fill in passwords in my browser and on my phone it is very easy to open the database via biometrics. However, non of the clients actually have a nice and shiny GUI…
That’s why I don’t suggest Keepass to people vs Bitwarden, even though it’s quote good, I know they’re gunna be put off instantly by Keepass’s ugly look.
Honestly though, all the mainstream password managers have pretty nasty looking interfaces IMO, so maybe it actually wouldn’t matter lol.
You bring up a good point with utilities like Bitwarden and Proton Mail; things that look nice and have good functionality attract the average user much more easily.
Last I checked, Bitwarden doesn’t have any way to hit a hotkey and insert login credentials in the current app? It also can’t be unlocked with biometrics?
Those aren’t “nice” features, they’re baseline features that every password manager needs to have. I don’t just type passwords into a browser, so a browser extension alone isn’t enough. And I’m not typing my umpteen character long password fifty times a day, there needs to be biometrics.
I will always choose open source software over closed source software - but not if it means choosing mediocre software over good software.
At least with android 13, you can choose the bitwarden app as your default autofill option, and it will fill login info in apps/websites/etc. That being said, I’ve noticed sometimes it won’t pop up immediately, but it’s by far the minority of situations where it does that.
This has been a feature for years - Android 10 at least, if not earlier.
Bitwarden 100% has biometric unlock (at least on Android, can’t speak for other platforms); as mentioned by @pattern, you can set it up to autofill login info in apps and websites. It does sometimes take a bit of time to show up, though.
Anecdotal experience, I know, but I managed to cure my wife of her habit of storing passwords in plaintext on her computer by moving her to Bitwarden, and I’ve had very little in the way of tech support to deal with in that area ever since, so at least for me it passes the “good for non-tech savvy folks” test.
Huh, turns out it does now! Definitely didn’t when I last tried the desktop app.
On the app page Bitwarden has the typical biometric symbols. And other FOSS alternatives also have biometric unlock. I use Keepass for example. On my desktop computer it is pretty easy to fill in passwords in my browser and on my phone it is very easy to open the database via biometrics. However, non of the clients actually have a nice and shiny GUI…
That’s why I don’t suggest Keepass to people vs Bitwarden, even though it’s quote good, I know they’re gunna be put off instantly by Keepass’s ugly look.
Honestly though, all the mainstream password managers have pretty nasty looking interfaces IMO, so maybe it actually wouldn’t matter lol.