Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
I've been using Bitwarden for years now. Their free tier is amazing, they're rarely down, and it's open source with extensions and apps for every platform.
I tried Proton Pass for a minute while Bitwarden was offline, but quickly ran back to Bitwarden. Proton's extension kept logging out for some reason. I didn't care enough to troubleshoot it.
Most here won’t like this answer. 1Password.
I’ve used it for years and it just works well for me. Finally convinced my spouse to also use it a couple of years ago. Switching is not an option since it took years of convincing to make that happen.
Big fan of Keeppass + syncing program of choice. It has served me well for years. If you don't like nextcloud pick a different syncing app.
I used to be a rabid advocate of self hosting password managers, and was switching between Vaultwarden and KeepassXC every few months. But Proton offered a lifetime subscription to Proton Pass with unlimited Simple login aliases, and I bought it now use this exclusively.
Selfhosted VaultWarden with Bitwarden browser apps and KeyGuard on my phone, which I like better than the Bitwarden app.
Correct me if I'm wrong: if something happens to your vaultwarden instance, aren't you at risk of losing everything? I do use bitwarden, but I could never self host it. Too important. ID rather use keepass with syncthing so that more than one of my devices have my passwords
That's what backups are for. No matter what solution I use, I would need backups. I used to use LastPass, but that just relied on LastPass to do the backups. I backup the database, but you can also periodically export the data and back that up somewhere securely on your own if you want it in a different format.
I also self host Vault Warden. I have my vault automatically exported to Google Drive as an encrypted copy. So worst case I can download from there, and import it to a new password manager or another Bitwarden instance if my server borks.
Since I started using a password manager, I've basically forgoten every one of my other passwords. I wouldn't be able to log in to my drive
Same here. But the bitwarden apps have a local copy of the vault. So you can always prevent them from syncing and use it to get the password. Assuming you have your phone still.
You can always have an offsite copy of the vault on a HDD somewhere. It'll be outdated, but at least it'll have the Google account. :)
Maybe. Why do you self host it? I'm not saying there are no benefits. I just think it's not worth it
Bitwarden has features I wanted and was better than the browser password manager I used previously. I already selfhost other apps so adding another one wasn't an issue. Plus it's free.
There’s a lot of arguments for one solution or the other based on security or privacy, but let me present a different scenario:
Imagine you’re in a natural disaster. Your home based self hosted server is down because of a general rolling network outage or just irrecoverably destroyed. Your offsite on the other side of the county is in a similar state. Can your cloud hosted backup be accessed at generic, public computer in a shelter or public building?
Bitwarden can. It has specific instructions for doing so as safely as possible.
Hackers have increased their focus on cracking password managers by extracting data from RAM and registry, compromising local and cloud storage. 25% is a threefold increase compared to the previous year's figures.
Yea I was just saying that. Well said
I use KeepassXC on desktop, KeepassDX on my phone and keep it all synced with Syncthing. Works great
This is the way.
If you can't self host --> KeePass If you can self host --> Vaultwarden
I hear good thing about Vaultwarden, but the web UI is horrible.
Vaultwarden's web UI is very confusing, especially the search feature. And it's difficult to move items between folders/collection. The desktop app is available as DEB/RPM package but without auto-update, which isn't great.
Fon now I'm sticking to KeepassXC because the desktop app for my Linux distribution has a package for it and allows auto-update. The UI works well, and it has decent browser integration. Syncing isn't smooth, but I can live with this.
Vaultwarden is not to be used in itself you can for example use the bitwarden app but with your vaultwarden server
You're right. Above, I was referring to the bitwarden desktop app. See https://github.com/bitwarden/desktop
It's an electron app, and there's no auto-update solution for DEB packages (ie no DEB repo for apt auto update).
Some people are probably happy with it, but I prefer KeepassXC which is more lightweight (ie not electron based) and can auto update via APT.
Is VW audited in the same way that BW is?
I'm not completely sure, but doesn't Bitwarden encrypt all data before it reaches the server? That means the server implementation is a bit less important. I guess you probably don't want to be leaking even encrypted databases though since there is a chance they could be cracked.
Really I don't know, surely a bit less but in my opinion, not that much
Vaultwarden is perfect imo
I like to use SyncThing for my keepass vault. Imo it's about as simple and elegant as it can get without involving third party services.
I know you're asking for an integrated sync but this has been flawless for me and only rarely notice a delay between machines including android, linux, and windows (less that 30s in any case)
I haven't seen it mentioned here so I'll throw it out there - 1Password. It's just a very smooth experience that I really appreciate.
1Password is the only one I found that I can share with the family, syncs changes practically instantly, and actually detects login fields on every platform I use it on (Android, Windows, Linux).
Agreed. The experience is so easy and well integrated that it has been trivial to get my whole family on it. Being open source would be very nice though. That lack of transparency due to closed source is my only real gripe with it.
They are closed source, but their white papers are very good
Got a free family subscription through my work. Before that I was paying for it.
1Password is just great. Wonderful Linux support (desktop app, cli client, identity agent for SSH).
The major update to version 8 was rolled out to Linux first, actually.
One of the few pieces of software where you feel that the developers care about their product.
I also use Unix pass and self host a git repo over Tailscale to keep it synced across devices. Works like a charm so long as I remember to push whenever I edit a password somewhere.
One of the big flaws of snapshot-based VCSs like get is the patch order mattering—which causes conflicts. I would love to see an alternative built on Darcs or Pijul with their Patch Theory-based VCS system that does not have the flaws Git does.
Yeah agreed. I borked my repo a couple times and needed to rollback changes, re-sync everything, and resubmit changes. It was a bit scary, but that’s also kind of the beauty of the system, is it’s just files in a folder. I could move the conflicting files out, do a push/pull and then move the files back in and push. The biggest part is getting in the habit of doing a pull before I make any local changes on a device.
I haven’t heard of the tools you mentioned, but you’ve got me curious, so I’ll definitely be looking into them and a potential fix. I’m sure I could automate things with some simple scripting, but until I make my final move off iOS I’m sort of stuck with the clunky Unix Pass app on that OS which causes most of my issues.
Presumably you could just target the passwordstore folder with any version control, Unix Pass just has some git interaction built in.
Proton pass if general UX and speed are important to you. Bitwarden if amount of features is important to you