New, portable, open source password manager for Windows | Hacker News Reader

New, portable, open source password manager for Windows

ylvapasswordmanager.com

52 pointsnvr8258 comments

Why this over keepass?

Also, a quick skim of the source code shows that the program keeps the decrypted file on-disk[1]. That seems like a huge vulnerability if you don't have FDE enabled.

[1] https://github.com/nrosvall/ylva/blob/2a4afcfb3727151fa09fdd...

https://github.com/nrosvall/ylva/blob/2a4afcfb3727151fa09fdd...

I think you need FDE no matter what. e.g. Hibernation will dump your passwords to disk, even if they're only kept in in unmanaged, VirtualProtect'ed memory.

And they are doing MAC-then-Encrypt in 2019.

The author may be a great person and an excellent software developer, but they are an amateur in applied cryptography.

Use with caution.

Yeah, that looks suspect. Maybe open a GitHub issue about it?

I unfortunately agree with the sentiment of others from this only being supported on windows. I built a CLI password manager[1] sort of as a learning exercise, but to this day I use it daily and have over 250 accounts managed in it. I temporarily back up the encrypted file to S3 in case my computer blows up, but for some reason I have a small sense of satisfaction that my passwords don’t live in a 3rd party like LastPass, even though I’m aware of the auditing and scrutiny they go through consistently to maintain credibility for what they do.

[1] https://github.com/whatl3y/hide

LastPass has been breached 3 times, and they’ve had RCEs in their Chrome Extensions.

Another one I've used for years is password safe:

https://pwsafe.org/

Free and open source.

Same. And I'm surprised by how rarely it gets mentioned in these kind of HN discussions. I would have thought given it's origins (originally designed by Bruce Schneier and open-sourced in 2002 [0]), it would have a bigger following.

[0] https://www.pwsafe.org/history.shtml

Portable… for Windows? It’s a .Net application using Windows Forms. That’s open sourced, and thus portable in theory. In practice, it’s Windows only.

Turns out they use a different meaning of “portable”:

”Open source version of Ylva is available as a single binary file which is portable by default. You can run it from a USB stick.”

In the world of Windows applications, portable means that the program can be run without any installation or storing anything locally. So you could run it off a usb or other portable storage. This is a common usage.

https://portableapps.com/

But this can't go everywhere my password are needed, why would I use this?

Not to be harsh, but LastPass (and others) works across Mac, PC, IOS & Android in multiple ways. A password manager to a degree needs to make my life easier, this means being portable and compatible.

I have been using Keepassx[1] with Syncthing[2] for synchronizing the password database. It has been a great experience due to following reasons beyond the crypto advantages:

- Open source

- Peer to peer without having to share file contents with central server like Dropbox etc.

- Full featured Android and Linux (KeepassXC) clients with nice UIs (on Android I have the option of using fingerprint auth to open my database)

- Autofill integration on Android (I haven't tried on Linux)

[1]: https://www.keepassx.org/ [2]: https://syncthing.net/

I use KeeWeb[1] on MacOS, iOS and Windows, and KeePass2Android[2] on my Android device which has decent autofill. They all also supports cloud storage natively, so I don't have to worry about keeping them in sync.

I do use Syncthing for other stuff though.

[1]: https://keeweb.info/ [2]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=keepass2androi...

I’ve been using Bitwarden for a little more than a month and it is by far the best password manager I used. And being open source is a very nice bonus. I’m going for tue paid option to support the company behind it.

Does it have the following? They're what have kept me stuck on KeePass:

- Browser integration (a single key combo unlocking & filling in passwords)

- OTP support

- SSH agent and key storage

- Entry-level (rather than file-level) synchronization

- Google Drive synchronization

- Automatic history maintenance

- Storing arbitrary additional data

- Icons (makes identifying entries so much faster)

- Browser integration (a single key combo unlocking & filling in passwords)

Yes.

- OTP support

Yes.

- SSH agent and key storage

No.

- Entry-level (rather than file-level) synchronization

Yes.

- Google Drive synchronization

Nope, but because it's hosted (or self-hosted) that's inapplicable.

- Automatic history maintenance

Yes, if you're talking about password history.

- Storing arbitrary additional data

Yes, including files.

- Icons (makes identifying entries so much faster)

Yes.

It does have a decent browser integration, OTP support, history support (last 5 passwords) support for arbitrary additional data and icons.

Having not read the source code, or investigated the details, my understanding is the sync is entry based over file based. On multiple occasions I lost data to Keepass's insane lack of sync functionality, I've never once done the same with Bitwarden. Google drive sync is kind of moot as the sync happens on a server (which you can run yourself).

> my understanding is the sync is entry based over file based

> Google drive sync is kind of moot as the sync happens on a server

Confused, so are you saying there is a server that does entry-based syncing? KeePass it's the KeePass client that resolves conflicts at the entry level with whatever is on Google Drive (which it connects to via plugins).

Apologies, I spoke too quickly. I'm unable to edit my original post to fix it.

The sync is client side according to [0]. I can't find specifics in any documentation on whether it works at an entry or file level, however I wonder is that actually important? Just because you sync at a file granularity doesn't mean you can't resolve entries individually.

My experience with Keepass was that my changes would get stuck in a conflict file that Dropbox would generate if you happened to use Keepass in 2 places at once, as they don't support syncing and force you to manually go through [1] on every device.

[0]https://help.bitwarden.com/article/how-is-data-securely-tran...

[1]https://gist.github.com/cmcginty/07869f3c6c27ecb0fef84ca7900...

I was using "syncing" and "resolving" synonymously. What I was distinguishing between was keeping the most recent file (which is what happens if you use typical cloud syncing for the whole database file) vs. the most recent entry in a given file (which is what you get when KeePass itself gets a chance to actually examine both versions and figure out conflicts internally).

I can't figure out how the KeePass (or the plugin you use, or whatever it is) was handling your Dropbox syncing; it sounds like it was doing a dumb file-level merge, when in fact it's capable of doing much better than that. I use the Google Sync Plugin which has never failed me, even when I'd modified databases on two clients independently before syncing. It uses the ImportUtil.Synchronize() function which I think is what handles the dirty details. See the Technical Details section here: https://keepass.info/help/v2/sync.html

> What I was distinguishing between was keeping the most recent file vs. the most recent entry in a given file

Sure! (sorry, have finally had my morning coffee). I believe that Bitwarden handles it correctly via "live sync" [0]. - albeit it's been a transparent process to me. I've generated logins on my mobile, and logged into them within 30s via the browser extensions on my desktop PC.

> I can't figure out how the KeePass (or the plugin you use, or whatever it is) was handling your Dropbox syncing;it sounds like it was doing a dumb file-level merge

It was, and it was excruciating. However, this is one of the issues I have with Keepass - it may be possible to do better, but the default behaviour is abhorrent.

From the link you gave, it explicitly calls out the issue in "advanced" synchronisation schemes under "Local <-> Master" [1]. If you don't correctly follow the setup steps you can end up with [2] which can (and does) result in data loss. The (as far as I can tell) official (as far as I can tell) forums seem to be happy to pass the buck [3] and say "Oh that's not our problem, that's the sync services problem".

> I use the Google Sync Plugin which has never failed me

I don't doubt that for a minute, but for someone migrating from LastPass/OnePass to Keepass, searching for "How to sync keepass across machines" will _never_ point you to the google sync plugin.

[0] https://blog.bitwarden.com/live-sync-bitwarden-apps-fb7a5456... [1] https://keepass.info/help/kb/trigger_examples.html#dbsync [2] https://sourceforge.net/p/keepass/discussion/329221/thread/2... [3] https://sourceforge.net/p/keepass/discussion/329221/thread/9...

> I believe that Bitwarden handles it correctly via "live sync"

That looks cool!

Re: your other comments though: you're not doing a fair comparison. Try letting Dropbox trash your %AppData%\Bitwarden folder and then let me know how well LiveSync handles syncing! That's what you're doing to KeePass.

> However, this is one of the issues I have with Keepass - it may be possible to do better, but the default behaviour is abhorrent.

This isn't the "default behavior" though. The default behavior is in fact to synchronize everything correctly... if you only give it a chance to do that. But if you insist on letting your Dropbox desktop sync pull the rug out from underneath KeePass and replace the whole database randomly, it's literally impossible for KeePass to know what the old entries were to be able to merge them -- it doesn't have them anymore. It needs an old copy of the database around so it can compare the two, and those instructions tell you to make a second copy so it can do its job. That seems pretty fair to me -- what more can you expect? You didn't even give it a chance to do its job, and instead let someone else just trash the place while it's gone, then blame it for not actively fighting your attempts to do that?

This is why KeePass has plugins like KeeAnywhere [1]. You're supposed to use those instead of syncing your database like a normal file. [2] So KeePass actually gets a chance to do its job... if you only let it!

[1] https://keepass.info/plugins.html#keeanywhere

[2] Well, KeePassX[C] folks will beg to differ and just tell you to keep doing what you were already doing and it'll work Just Fine (TM), and that what you were seeing happening in front of your eyes was supposed to be vanishingly unlikely. It's basically gaslighting as far as I can tell, but somehow they can pretend it doesn't affect them, so I dunno...

Understood re; Dropbox and appdata however that doesn't change the fact that if you search for how to sync Keepass across machines that's what you're told to do! The fact that they don't consider syncing a core part of the password manager and are happy to tell people to take awful workarounds (and not mention that it can be resolved with a plug-in anywhere on the main site) tells me that I don't want to use that project.

Pity we didn't have this discussion 18 months ago, I might not have left keepass

> The fact that they don't consider syncing a core part of the password manager

> and not mention that it can be resolved with a plug-in anywhere on the main site

Again, you're accusing them of something that's false! They very much do see this as core functionality and explicitly tell you how to synchronize right there in the synchronization section [1]:

If one of the files to be synchronized is stored in an online storage (like e.g. Amazon's S3, DigitalBucket, ...), you need an online storage provider plugin (e.g. KeeAnywhere, KeeCloud or KeePassSync).

> and are happy to tell people to take awful workarounds

The only bit I'll give you is that the workaround isn't user-friendly, and that they should probably leave a note mentioning the much-more-user-friendly plugins in the Trigger Examples [2]. But aside from that, if you actually follow their workaround, it should work just fine -- as I understood your problem was that you didn't follow their workaround, then you blamed them for the resulting file conflicts...

[1] https://keepass.info/help/v2/sync.html

[2] https://keepass.info/help/kb/trigger_examples.html#dbsync

It has browser integration but it has a client server model so there is nothing to sync with gdrive or Dropbox. So it's more like lastpass than keypass.

You can host your own server and there is at least one alternative server implementation.

Seconded. I used LastPass for probably 5 years, and moved to Bitwarden a few months ago. No regrets. It was a breeze to setup the Docker image, migrate my data, and the TOTP support works even better. It'd take a lot for me to consider another open source implementation.

I've been considering moving to Bitwarden or Enpass, as my 1Password subscription is ending.

Is there anything missing from Bitwarden that's in other paid apps?

Mostly little things.

No encrypted export/import.

The mobile apps can be slow if you have hundreds of entries and aren't using a flagship device. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitwarden/comments/aic1ad/why_is_an...

When your vault is locked it won't offer to save or update passwords.

When your vault is locked it won't respond to the "fill login" shortcut. 1Password would have you enter your master password and then it would fill the login. Bitwarden just doesn't respond.

You can access your username/password from the main window but if your TOTP code expires before you log in you will have to go digging.

I moved to Bitwarden from 1Password. Use it on iOS. Can’t say I miss anything at all. I pay the yearly fee for it too to support them because it’s pretty damn awesome.

Any particular reason for leaving 1Password? I've been using it for almost a year now and haven't had any complaints. Though I literally did just switch from Android to iOS yesterday, so maybe I'll find a reason shortly :P

I paid for the desktop version of 1Password. When it went subscription based I was annoyed. Started hearing about bitwarden and after trying it (after trying others) I really liked it. So I moved to it cos it was free. But I just got more impressed with it on iOS, windows, and on linux I always have Firefox open so I just use that. I decided to pay for a year to support their effort.

So no particular reason other than not liking the subscription plan of 1Password.

Looks nice. I've been a 1password user for some years, but the lack of a proper linux client is a pest. Bitwarden seems like it would be worth a try.

I too tried to like Bitwarden but have been disappointed. In the meantime I've made a basic linux CLI for read-only access, seems to be sufficient for the time being: https://github.com/vinc3m1/1pa

Nice! I don't have an opvault file right now as I use AgileBits' sync service, but I'll create one next time I'm in windows and give this a try.

(An aside: every time someone points out a golang repo I'm impressed by the code readability, given I'm only passingly familiar with the language)

Hmm. Not a great start - 'select all' on the linux client selects all the page text, rather than the items, so there's no way to bulk edit. Doesn't engender much confidence.

[Edit: OK it turns out to be an electron app, and a barely functional one at that]

Out of curiosity, why would you ever want to select all in your password manager?

In this particular case it's because I wanted to move all the items from a single imported 1Password vault (I have a few for different purposes) into a Bitwarden folder.

But more generally, when trying new software I tend to exercise its functionality as a first QA pass. There's a 'select all' entry in the Edit menu, and a keyboard shortcut, so it seems reasonable to try it. The failure isn't in itself a show stopper, but it's a mark against the app for me.

Folder organization makes sense. My guess is this shows up as a shortcut “for free” as a result of it being electron based. I think the “native” client is the newest client Bitwarden offers and probably hasn’t gotten as much polish yet.

Yes agree on the shortcut 'for free' aspect, but I'd consider expunging unused default menu items as part of a very basic pre-release checklist, rather than 'polish'. I don't share the frequently-expressed antipathy to electron apps, but many are quite shoddy, which only adds to their poor reputation. I've seen commercial apps which (for example) replace their whole window contents with a dragged image.

I'll keep an eye on Bitwarden - I like the overall shape of the project, but it's not ready for me yet (had some problems with the firefox extension also).

I'll shamelessly plug my own open source password manager, not because it's mine but because I believe it is better. And it is more portable, just put it in your pocket! It's at https://finalkey.net/

Hmm, I guess this year everyone writes their own password manager.

(Can we have a year of fast PIM outliners? The competition is pretty sparse there.)

The first thing I do whenever someone writes their own password manager is to read the Encrypt function. This one is AES-CBC with its own hand rolled integrity scheme. Not very strong by modern standards

Doesn't look very hand rolled to me. It's standard HMAC. The only unusual thing is the timing-unsafe comparison[1], which probably needs fixing. It looks like an attempt was made at a constant-time comparison (|= ^ pattern sure looks like it), but the early return breaks it again. I'm not sure if much can be gained from a timing attack in this particular instance though, since the key fully depends on user input in the first place.

(By the way, even Microsoft's own documentation doesn't use constant-time comparisons for HMAC[2]!)

[1] https://github.com/nrosvall/ylva/blob/2a4afcfb3727151fa09fdd...

[2] See the example on https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.security....

I'm not a C# expert by any means. Is the IntegrityHash of the plaintext, and not the ciphertext? https://github.com/nrosvall/ylva/blob/2a4afcfb3727151fa09fdd...

That would be a really serious flaw. If not, hand rolled AES-CBC-SHA256.... why not just use an AEAD implementation? This is exactly why I look at these. There's a lot of nuance to that one decision, and so it usually gives quite a bit of signal about the project as a whole.

As soon as I saw "verkkokauppa" in the list I assumed it was a Finnish developer.

It looks like a nice project, but I'd echo the other compaints - having a tree, or folders, would make it much more useable.

I tend to have a structure which looks like this (simplified):

    Git/
       github.com
       gitlab.com
    Servers/
       ssh.example.com/
          root.txt
       ssh.example.org/
          webmail.txt
    Websites/
       lwn.net

Having all the items in a flat list soon becomes very crowded. Checking my own password store I have over 300 entries.

All password managers and form fillers I've tried are quite terrible at correctly finding and filling fields/text boxes. They all seem to rely on finding patterns for things to fill from code. Which doesn't work. As there is no clear pattern accross billions of non-standard web-forms.

Does anybody know of pw managers that work using image recognition (OCR-like) on the GUI to find fillable fields? AKA: using the same form-API that humans do?

I would guess that it wouldn't be worth the hassle of the inevitable inaccurate identifications. The most ergonomic password entry tool I've used is rofi-pass [1]. It's so effortless that I don't think anything smarter could improve on it in practice. It works in a predictable and way in any application (eg SSH pw in a terminal) without any complex integrations being needed and once you get used to using the hotkey it's basically as quick as form autofilling.

[1] https://github.com/carnager/rofi-pass

Hmm unfortunately I don't have an answer for your question. Though sounds like KeePass is the next best thing. You can define custom auto-type patterns, for forms that don't follow the typical <username><tab><password><enter> format. It's great for saving ftp sites for filezilla, or ssh logins.

I tried this briefly under Wine in Linux. On the surface it doesn't look like it has 2 features I really like about Keepass:

- Folders. I like using folders and subfolders to keep related sets of passwords together.

- Support for attachments. Keepass lets me keep track of keyfiles, notes, and certificates in addition to passwords. Ylva has a notes field but I really like Keepass's ability to attach files.

The QR integration is interesting I guess, I don't have any apps that allow QR code for password input but if I did it would be useful.

This is nice and all, but what am I going to do with a Windows only password manager? I use several different OSs and a phone. It's pretty much a must that my password manager works on all of them.

What does this achieve over the feature set of keepassx?

I use Passbolt at work for a geo-deslocated team and it works very good.

The title is a bit of an oxymoron.

"...portable...for Windows"

In the context of Windows applications, "portable" is also used to mean "runs without installation/further dependencies, you can just run it from a folder somewhere".

No, please not another password manager... I have not looked into it much, but hell, it looks like it even ships its own crypto.

Not a single word about how security features are implemented. Not very convincing for HN audience.

Please don't take on yourself to speak for everyone even if the point itself is valid. That's been bad manners since the BBS days if not earlier.

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