It is truly upsetting to see how few people use password managers. I have witnessed people who always use the same password (and even tell me what it is), people who try to login to accounts but constantly can’t remember which credentials they used, people who store all of their passwords on a text file on their desktop, people who use a password manager but store the master password on Discord, entire tech sectors in companies locked to LastPass, and so much more. One person even told me they were upset that websites wouldn’t tell you password requirements after you create your account, and so they screenshot the requirements every time so they could remember which characters to add to their reused password.
Use a password manager. Whatever solution you think you can come up with is most likely not secure. Computers store a lot of temporary files in places you might not even know how to check, so don’t just stick it in a text file. Use a properly made password manager, such as Bitwarden or KeePassXC. They’re not going to steal your passwords. Store your master password in a safe place or use a passphrase that you can remember. Even using your browser’s password storage is better than nothing. Don’t reuse passwords, use long randomly generated ones.
It’s free, it’s convenient, it takes a few minutes to set up, and its a massive boost in security. No needing to remember passwords. No needing to come up with new passwords. No manually typing passwords. I know I’m preaching to the choir, but if even one of you decides to use a password manager after this then it’s an easy win.
Please, don’t wait. If you aren’t using a password manager right now, take a few minutes. You’ll thank yourself later.
I use a password pattern. I have hundreds of different passwords all stored in my head and all between 10-20 characters long. The trick is to have a deterministic formula for picking a password.
Example: short word + First 6 in url + symbol + short word capitalised + number
Let’s say the first word is cat and second is dog, symbol is - and number is 5 and you have a Gmail it would give you
“catgmail-Dog5”
https://www.passwordmonster.com/ gives it 61 years to crack this one but if you use longer words you get better times.
I’d be open to using a pw manager then I read the comments here and everyone is suggesting different apps, arguing over how inconvenient one or the other it, various issues, etc. It doesn’t make me feel like taking action if everything feels sketchy.
If you’re on Linux and you don’t want to use KeepassXC, you can check out Secrets on Flathub, it has imo a better UI/UX
If you’re on Linux and you like minimalism, pass is also a great option
Interesting, thanks for the recommendation.
I blame the tinfoil hat infosec crowd for not understanding that the world they inhabit is not the same one Regular Users live in.
Is there risk in keeping all your passwords in one place, whether it’s on your hardware or someone else’s? hell yes! Is that risk stastically speaking ANYTHING LIKE the risk you take when you use ‘pencil’ for all your passwords because you can’t be arsed to memorize anything more complex? OH HELL YES.
Sure, if you’re defending against nation state level agressors, maybe using a password manager isn’ the wisest choice, but for easily 99% of computer users, we’re at the level of “keeping people from drooling on their shoes”. So password managers are probably a GREAT idea.
So password managers are probably a GREAT idea.
That is, when they can manage to use it.
I feel like password managers are more targeted to companies where sharing and controlling login data shouldnt be logged on some table in an excel sheet.
It just so happens that a manager is also god damn convenient for the private individualI don’t think that’s always the case. 1Password started out as a personal password manager and only added the corporate/teams/families features later.
I’ve been using Firefoxs integrated password manager for lots of unimportant logins, KeePass for everything else.
And also set-up SSO/LDAP in your homelab if you run one so you don’t have 3000 loose outdated account entries for IPs like 192.168.10.5 user: admin password:*****
Except a lot of homelab software doesn’t support things like LDAP
I actually combine a password manager with a password book, don’t like storing data for sensitive accounts on servers that can be breached and I’m too lazy to self host 😬 and I can remember my password phrases for sensitive accounts I use normally.
It is truly upsetting to see how complicated for use password managers are.
I grow up around computers and I can barely mange them. Other people just don’t understand how to use them, it is complicated and inconvenient. Even after I set them up and show them multiple times, friends don’t manage.
In browser password managers cover 90%, but I guess web sites and apps need to start testing UX for password managers. Some of them introduce stupid flows that brake all of them.
Android is complete shit show.
It is not users, but applications and UX that doesn’t care about security.
Been using Bitwarden for a couple years now…
No regrets
is it possible to sync keepassxc between computers + phone?
Yes, but it’s a bit involved to automate it. KeePassXC has a less technical recommendation here
I have it synced across 4 computers and my phone. You just need a central repository. For that I use nextcloud. I suppose you could use OneDrive, Google drive, box, sync thing, or something else though.
Syncthing has worked well for me between 3 devices(Linux, android, windows). I’ve had one conflict in 6mo and it was easy to identify the right copy to select in keepass’ prompt since the more recent one was a larger file.
Synchthing also provides optional version control which makes backing up easy.
A long time ago, I used Syncthing to do this. Sometimes there would be file conflicts, which was a pain to resolve, so I switched to BitWarden (using their server for syncing) and have been using it ever since.
You can keep the database on a device accessable by all of your other devices. I’m sure there are many other solutions but that’s worked for me over the years.
tbh i just keep the master version on my computer and physically transfer it to my phone every so often. i try to avoid using too many password-requiring services on my phone.
i used to do this, until I started using syncthing
i only add password entries on my laptop then sync the file directly to my phone using syncthing to avoid conflict
Yes. The easiest/most reliable is syncthing. Yet there’s the online-component which is inherently vulnerable. Depends on how paranoid you are.
You can lock your password database with a key file (this is a standard feature in keepassxc) and transfer the key file once between devices via sneakernet (microsd or usb drive). That way even if someone intercepts your database file, AND knows your password, it is still virtually impossible to crack. Should be a good enough solution, unless you are quantum-tier paranoid
That is actually a good idea. I’m not using one rn as i only manually transfer it. Might be worth considering. Thanks
My sell on password managers is quality of life. You never have to reset your passwords and you can use a hotkey to enter it faster than typing. Gone are the days of fat fingers.
But I get where people have an issue. It’s one point of failure vs. many, but they don’t realize It’s easier to well secure the one than it is to not spread the same vulnerability everywhere.
Honestly as someone who has helped family members set up a password manager one person felt this way and the rest are just not tech savvy. All the simple straightforward stuff took ages because they had never done it before.
Been using 1Password for 6+ years and I probably won’t use anything else ever. My wife and I both use it and have a shared family vault for things we both use. I couldn’t live without a password manager.
Using Proton Pass was a game changer to me , I don’t have to ignore the necessity to put a strong and complicated password for security reasons anymore, Proton generate it to me and stores everything ( so I don’t need to remember which password I set for which account ) But the bad aspects of cloud services worry me a little about this: the possibility of a security breach of the service, or the possibility of not being able to access it for any reason is a real disaster if it happens… so I’m thinking of exporting my passwords to another safe place for such cases.
But the bad aspects of cloud services worry me a little about this
KeePassXC is entirely local.
I know , but won’t that affect my storage if I added +1000 password ?
It shouldn’t take up too much space. My personal password file is under 2 KB, so for you it may be 1 MB at most.
unless your storage is a floppy disk, won’t be a problem
I actually considered sticking it on a floppy disk I have. It really is a wonder how Linux is able to recognize floppy disks immediately…
It really is a wonder how Linux is able to recognize floppy disks immediately…
As is Windows.
Passwords don’t take up much space.
Which creates issue with having to synchronize it between devices. There is always something to worry about :)
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
Exactly, so use Proton :P
that’s nice soundbite, i am just saying you have to be realistic. if you are aiming at people who up until now had their passwords on post-it on the monitor, switching to tool where you need to come up with some synchronization system on your own might not be what convinces them.
so I’m thinking of exporting my passwords to another safe place for such cases.
I’m also using ProtonPass, and I agree it’s a game changer. I love the interface, the Android app is amazing and well integrated.
To not be locked in into ProtonPass in case of real disaster, once a month I export the ProtonPass data and import to KeepassXC in my local machine. It’s pretty easy, you just have to export to CSV, and import into KeepassXC, the interface will help you to map the CSV fields accordingly, and you will have a local accessible backup in case of disaster. Don’t forget to remove the CSV from your computer after importing to KeepassXC.
even if their servers were compromised it’s all encrypted. it only decrypts on your end
You can export all your passwords to an encrypted and password protected file. I ocasionally back it up to a USB device so that I always have an offline copy available.
Still, one of these days I was logged out of my proton pass on Android and couldn’t connect to the internet. I was locked down.
I used to use a plain text system, “encoded” in such a way that only I knew what the actual password was, and I kept it on Google Keep.
But that for harder and harder to manage, coupled with, if I were to get run over by a bus, no one else would be able to access my accounts.Now I’ve been using Dashlane for a few years. Not just for passwords, but secure notes as well.
Works seamlessly on all of my devices and zero complaints.
I have been using password gestoires for a long time. First LastPass, until I switched to GNU/linux and discovered Keepass and then KeepassXC… For me they are indispensable. That’s the one I used until about 1 year ago when I started having problems with the Firefox addon. It did not recognize the pages. I tried ProtonPass and I like it, but I don’t like having them online, no matter how secure the site is. I’ve tried going back to KeepassXC, locally, but the file I export from ProtonPass won’t load in KeepassXC. I feel stuck.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
I’ve tried going back to KeepassXC, locally, but the file I export from ProtonPass won’t load in KeepassXC. I feel stuck.
Open a bug report in KeepassXC’s repository, maybe it’s a big in their code. Or they’ll tell you that the bug is in proton pass, and you can report it there too so that they know about it and can fix it. Maybe the KeepassXC team can give you a workaround too
Open a bug report in KeepassXC’s repository, maybe it’s a big in their code. Or they’ll tell you that the bug is in proton pass, and you can report it there too so that they know about it and can fix it. Maybe the KeepassXC team can give you a workaround too
My English is very poor for technical explications… I search the issue in KeepassXC Github but I don’t found similar solution.
Proton Pass is a pretty new service, maybe there haven’t been much users yet who have moved to KeepassXC from it. I would say give it a try, it’s not that bad.
Something else you could try is:
a) check the Bitwarden repo if anyone had a similar problem as you. If so, it’s more likely that it’s a Proton Pass problem, and maybe they have some tips.
b) import your Proton Pass export to another password manager (Bitwarden, original Keepasd), export it from there, and try to import this in KeepassXC. Though this might have a higher chance of losing some information, in the sense of metadata. If you go this way, don’t forget to make a fresh export of your Proton Pass account, in case you have changed something there in the meantime
Did you export ProtonPass to CSV?
Yes, I export to CSV but when I import in KeepassXC, only one column appears.
