Privacy @lemmy.ml

1y ago

Is Firefox browser's password manager safe? If not, Are there any other free safe alternatives?

thank you.

73 comments

Bitwarden. It's free, open-srouce, you can even self-host your own instance.. or pay 10$/year! for the full support. The free version has everything you will ever need.
- The price for the premium is fucking crazy. 10$ a fucking YEAR?? Not month but YEAR!? What features do you get? Actually I don't care about the features just take my money that's cheap as shit
  
  I have premium and I have no idea. I just pay it to support them.
  It's an excellent password manager. I love it!
  
  I pay for Bitwarden premium and the big thing for me is the ability to use it for 2FA/TOTP right from the browser extension (for sites where I feel convenience mostly trumps hardened security). It's glorious that Bitwarden autofills username and password, and then auto-copies the current 2FA code to your clipboard so you can just paste it immediately, instead of needing to pull up your phone and authenticator app to fetch a code, or check your email/texts for a code.
  
  It's so good that people think we are paid to promote it. Kinda sad that really. It's pretty evident that we aren't shills. Use my code: shill20
  
  It's insane to think that people think of that as cheap. It's ... adequate. Clearly enough to run a company that can support it and further develop it, all the infrastructure, etc. Somehow all other companies convinced us that it should be okay to pay $10 per month or more for the most basic of services, where until now their revenue per user was maybe $0.5/month for the biggest users (ad watchers).
  $10 per year is what the vast majority of subscriptions should cost - they'd still make plenty of money, but it's just not enough for them when they know they can nickle and dime you for more.
  
  the big feature i use from premium is the ability to use hardware 2fa. i use a Yubikey to secure it further. worth the peace of mind imo, and Bitwarden has never once failed me in the years i've been using it!
  
  I know of MFA being allowed on it when you go premium, and I think it allows a collection, so you can have a shared collection of passwords with someone else. It's been really handy for my wife and I, especially for things like bank and apartment logins.
  
  You can share passwords with other people, you get 1gb of attachments space disk (to store important documents, recovery keys, crypto wallet, etc), you have access to many reports that will tell you what password might have leaked, weak password and whatnot.
  
  You can store attachments and, I think, more sharing feature? Honestly, I too pay to support them.
- +1 to Bitwarden!!
- If you're like me and your work uses Bitwarden, your personal family accounts are free too. And unconnected to the business account of course.

The Firefox password manager can be secured with a master password that encrypts everything in your browser password store. Believe it's pretty secure if you set this password otherwise it's almost akin to having passwords stored in plain text.
+1 for bitwarden
- It's encrypted over Firefox Sync though, regardless of if you set a master password.
  The master password is only needed if you don't have complete physical security (or your machine is hacked)
  Curious if OP was more interested in how secure the Sync feature is vs the manager itself. Sync requires trusting that Mozilla aren't the bad guys.
  
  It only uses Sync if you set up a Mozilla account. If you prefer not to do that, you can still set a Primary Password and the passwords will remain local on your machine, encrypted: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-firefox-securely-saves-passwords
  
  Only if you have sync for passwords enabled though.

IMO yes. It's stored encrypted on their sync service, and you can additionally encrypt it locally too by setting a master password in FF settings.
Didn't notice any mention that you can actually self host Firefox's browser sync service yourself. Personally haven't tried, but IIRC there's setup docs on Mozilla's github
- I self hosted the sync service for awhile, but I think its broken now.

I wouldn't use any browser password manager, last time I even looked at one they were saving my passwords in plaintext!
Bitwarden, one pass, keepass, basically anything other than LastPass should be good!
- without a master password, firefox just uses a simple scheme it can reverse. if you use a master password, though, then that password is needed.
  chromium browsers now use windows credentials, if you have no password on a local windows account, then none is needed to extract the passwords from the browser. .
- It seems I'm not up-to-date. What's wrong with LastPass?
  Edit: nevermind. I just googled it. [https://www.notebookcheck.com/Ist-LastPass-noch-sicher-Experten-kritisieren-den-Passwortmanager.677484.0.html)(url) Here is an article about it (in German), for anyone else wondering.
  Seems like I will have to find a way to move my vault to another password manager. I hope I can find a way of doing this safely without needing to do that manually... So I am grateful for any advice!
  
  https://bitwarden.com/help/import-from-lastpass/
  Here's how you do it with Bitwarden, in case you decide on that
  
  Other than the terrible security record? That they are proprietary.
  
  I moved from LastPass to Bitwarden. It was quite easy to move everything over. I've been using Bitwarden for several years now and have no complains. I believe Bitwarden has a guide on how to move your content from LastPass.
  Edit: I use Bitwarden on both pc and mobile. No issues.
  
  I migrated from lastpass to pass using pass-import. Worked wonders.
- thank you for the rec! a small doubt even though they are in plaintext, when the hackers can't log in aren't they safe tho or is it easy to hack?
  
  Most viruses now start off by scooping up all saved browser passwords automatically then sending them to a remote server. So if one of those ever goes off on your system you are at quite a risk. Especially since there are really good other options that aren't vulnerable to that

Just bitwarden is all that's needed to be said. Ohh, and yubikey
- I use Bitwarden and, though all the features are very nice (self hosted Vaultwarden), the clients are really bad. The autofill is super inconsistent on Android. The app takes 20s+ to load on my Pixel 3a. You can't trigger a sync from the quick autofill menu, you have to open the full app. The "desktop app" is just an embedded browser. I really want to like it, but it doesn't make it easy.
  
  The Firefox add-on works great, and I've never really needed more than that and the website. On Android I have a 3a too and not noticed this issue.
  
  Not sure what you mean about no autofill on android, it definitely pops up on login fields for me and quickly lets me login with biometrics and then gives me my account. I only ever need to open up the app when I need to force it to sync if I'd just added a login on a different device and it hasn't synced yet.
  
  I agree with most of your points although the android app is fast for me. The autofill isn't great I must stress.
  The windows app and autofill need an overhaul.

I use KeePassXC for some years now. Very happy with it, especially because there's a version of it for almost every platform.
- And the browser extension is great

I personally switched from it to Keepass, it is cross-platform, open-source and pretty secure. It doesn't come with cloud support, but I guess you could just put the file in some sort of cloud storage you trust. It also supports one-time authentication codes!
- I've been using keepass for years. I use syncthing to keep the copy of the db on my phone and laptop and backup synced.
- The big downside of this is when you need to log in to some web site when being away from your computer.
  Then you have to transfer your entire database to some other computer and make sure it's deleted afterwards in a secure way. Much more risky than using Bitwarden I believe.
  I guess you can skip the deletion part if you trust there is no way to decrypt the db file in the future.
  
  On the rare occasion I need that, I just run KeePassDX Portable from a flash drive.
  But really it's a bit risky to use any password manager on a device you don't control.
  At least my KeePass database is secured with my YubiKey so it's not likely anyone will get in if they do stumble onto my DB file.
- I tried keepass but then switched to vaultwarden.

Bitwarden

Broswer != password manager. Will this notion please fucking die

Dont use browser password managers. Use KeepassXC

I don't recommend using any browser's in built manager. Look into Bitwarden or KeePassXC.

it's pretty safe but bitwarden is much better

Mozilla is one of the like 3 companies (thought the foundation is non profit) that I would trust my encrypted data with

Well it's better than Chrome's if you don't sync to your account, however I'd recommend you local password manager such as keepass

Keepass has what you're looking for. Free, totally cross platform, no cloud unless you wanna put the database file on cloud storage, and can be very secure.
- Or KeepassXC
  
  Context: KeepassXC is the Linux/macOS port of Keepass. Although it is handled by a different team, it isn't significantly different from the Windows app.

https://bitwarden.com/

keepass

Bitwarden open Source independently audited. Many good things.

I use enpass because you can choose where to store your pass db. Also, proton released their own password manager
- I've used both Enpass and Proton. Enpass is a bit more feature-ful, mainly because Proton Pass is new. I switched away from Enpass as I didn't like that they basically had me pay for it three times, even though the first one was a lifetime license. But I needed my passwords. Finally decided to put in the effort to move away from them as their constant begging to subscribe was annoying. So switched to Proton since I already subscribe to the plan that includes Pass.
  Proton is working on expanding features and have added a few in the short while I've had it. I'd suggest Bitwarden over Enpass personally, particularly if you want features Proton Pass doesn't offer yet (like no desktop or web app yet, but they are working on both, so until then, I need to use a browser extension)
  
  I might see myself switching to proton pass from Bitwarden in the future, but a deal breaker for me is the lack of emergency contacts to give acces to your vault if the shit has hit the fan.

I don't know if Firefox's is safe but I use and love KeePassXC:
https://keepassxc.org/

Do not use browser based password managers as they're often not encrypted and are tied to that particular browser. Self host/use Bitwarden along with the web extension or KeyPassXC.

Anyone have details on Dashlane? It's what I use for the whole family but I have no idea if it's secure...
- I use this too but it seems like it has fallen out of favor...

If baffles me one is as tech enthousiast to be on the privacy Lemmy; but has never heard of a password manager.
On topic: Bitwarden is the way, like others have mentioned before me. It has delivered on all my needs for a manager for a couple of years now.
- People learn new stuff all the time bro, no need to be a dick.
  
  I wholeheartedly agree and support that. Hence my recommendation for Bitwarden. Somehow you lemmies can’t appreciate my sincere bafflement, constructive discussion everyone; it’s you who is the dick. Keep them downvotes coming and have a nice day.

73 comments