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Comment by tgb | Hacker News Reader

Can I use this space to ask how people actually use password managers on mobile? I got LastPass recently and put on it a good secure "correct horse battery staple"-type password. So now when I use accounts on my phone I have to type that password instead of my short, randomly generated, reused-all-the-time password. This means I'm more secure (no password reuse) but typing 30ish characters without error into my phone is tough! It usually takes me three tries and every time I curse my new password manager.

But the alternative seems to be staying logged in to LastPass which means it's just my four digit phone pin to get access to everything. I mean, I guess if someone takes my phone and bypasses my PIN then I've already lost basically everything. But at least I wouldn't also be signing them into my bank account. My phone doesn't have biometrics which I think would be my compromise if it had them.

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I use 1pass on my phone. I have a long password (English phrase) that I only use with 1pass I guess I've entered it enough times on mobile that I don't mistype it often.

I use it to generate new passwords for whatever signups/apps I need on mobile, also for logging into websites on mobile. The workflow for password managers in mobile safari works very well.

I don't enable FaceID/TouchID/PIN for 1Password, but I do have it enabled for my device.

If you're on Android 8 or above (yes, I know most people aren't) there's support for password managers filling passwords in almost any app. Some apps aren't well built and don't support it. As far as I can tell, it's not something the developer has to explicitly enable support for though.

Anyways, I use the Bitwarden app on my S8 (and previously HTC 10) and it works great. I tap a password field, Android asks me if I want to fill the password, I unlock my "vault" with my fingerprint, and tap the right account for that app. It's pretty easy.

LastPass and Bitwarden also can hook into accessibility features on Android 7, to enable most of the same features, but since it's not part of Android and baked in it doesn't work quite as well.

Hey, thanks for telling. I've been using 1pass on android since a long time ago, and autofilling username and password is a real hassle. In the past the only way to do the autofill was to use the 1password keyboard, which is inconvenient for me to change keyboard every time filling a password. But I just try the new autofill feature on the Android 8, and it works like a charm. It supports autofill on native apps and webpage via Google Chrome as well.

Yeah, it’s painful without biometrics. For my threat model I’m happy enough to use TouchID on Mac and FaceID on my iPhone to unlock, and then to type in on the occasional time I need to unlock it manually.

I use 1Password with Face ID on my iPhone, Touch ID on my iPad, and Touch ID on my Macbook Pro. The only time I have to type in my master password is when I use my Windows desktop at home.

I used to use LastPass and frankly it's far behind 1Password in user experience, especially on Apple devices.

1Password 7 supports Windows Hello. It is now my favourite way to unlock 1Password :)

I absolutely love Enpass. Cost me a fixed $10 for all my iOS devices. I host my database on my local WebDAV (but there are many other options).

I use pass[1], which has an unofficial Android app[2]. When you select a password in the Android app, it lets you paste it to any text field using normal copy & paste. Clicking the password does the "copy" part of the operation automatically. After a brief timeout, the password is no longer available to be pasted.

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

[2] - https://github.com/zeapo/Android-Password-Store

Aside from using biometrics, which makes it much easier, you might consider using a long passphrase as the master password. A passphrase is easier to remember and to type than random characters. It’s what I do, and it’s pretty easy to type without mistakes on mobile too.

My password is a passphrase though. But you don't get autocorrect or swype functionality for typing passwords, understandably, so typing it is not easy (harder even because it grows in length for it's lower entropy per length).

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