Ask HN: What password manager do you recommend for non-technical people? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What password manager do you recommend for non-technical people?

7 pointsstabbles13 comments

I'm a happy user of pass [1], but would not recommend to people unfamiliar with unix. What password manager should I recommend to non-technical people around me?

[1] https://www.passwordstore.org/

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1password to me looks by far the best choice today.

My wife uses Lastpass, it’s very user friendly but I don’t like how they market insecure features such as sharing passwords (specifically, there’s a “secure sharing” where they claim the recipient can’t see the password, which clearly can’t be true if you know anything on how html forms work).

Personally, I prefer deterministic algorithms, and I’m building one, exactly because I don’t think there’s a good user friendly solution. Unfortunately we just have the ios app for now, but if you’re interested in having a look at it, mempa.io. Feedback is more than welcome.

For me, the problems with LastPass are that they require you use their cloud services, and you can't really do anything at all with LastPass unless you're online and using a browser.

In contrast, 1Password is a local application with browser integration, and a local password store. So, you can use it with a browser if you want, but you can also use it across other applications on the system. And since the password store is local, you don't have to be online.

Yes, 1Password does offer their own cloud sync services that you can use if you want, but it is not mandatory, and they offer multiple alternatives if you choose.

I think LastPass probably offers better tools for Enterprises and maybe also teams, but that's not the particular use case asked for here.

Honestly? A notebook.

For normal people this is generally pretty secure (it matches the "threat model") and easy to use.

6 comments and I'm surprised no one mentioned 1Password. To me, it's the most user friendly of the bunch.

I'm a happy user of Bitwarden, but until it undergoes a formal security audit I'd probably recommend Lastpass or 1Password (assuming "non-technical people" means friends/family)

One feature on 1Password I _love_ is its diceword generator. These are so much easier type when I do need to type them and I even remember a few.

I recommend Dashlane[1] to be honest, not only it's available as a Desktop app, its available on iOS and Android and even on the web and you can change your passwords on the fly.

[1] https://www.dashlane.com/

I've set-up Keeppass for my girlfriend a few years ago and she stuck with it. She uses the (original) windows app and Keeppass2Android on, well, Android, with the DB synced on Dropbox. It just works.

A pencil and paper notebook.

I'm a big fan of https://www.enpass.io and it also has two-factor authentication support :-)

Enpass is great. The desktop and mobile apps are both very clean and easy to use. I tried a few and settled with enpass.

Keepassx doesn't look hard to use. It has the advantage (IMHO) of being a local application. Drop the encrypted database on some sync service, modify it with only one device at a time, everything should be ok.

Mac and Windows from https://www.keepassx.org/

Linux with apt or yum.

Android: keepassdroid from the Play Store

iOS: probably http://minikeepass.github.io/

Lastpass

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