LastPass

It is so easy to use. You just install it in your browser and forget it exists until you need to punch in a password you forgot. It is a perfect way to manage your passwords!

I would like it to remember my passwords automatically instead of asking me every time. I'm not sure that option exists so far. Other than that, it is great!

A password manager helps you manage all your passwords. Each password is unique and is protected with a master password only you know. That means you can use unique, strong passwords for every account without having to remember them. This is extremely important for accounts with sensitive information like your email or banking account. Lastpass has done a great job up until recently.

I loved using LastPass, and had been using it for over a year. After they changed their pricing model to pay for a subscription I decided to see if there were any other great password managers out there. I'm not against paying for services, but I don't like how they pulled the rug out of everyone who relied on the free version, where they get so used to the software as apart of their daily life, that it forces many to just pay the fee (many of whom would likely have never signed up in the first place if it were not free). So to me, it feels like a bait and switch, where they had this planned all along. So it's the principle for me.

The smarter way (to strengthen, and not harm their brand), would have been to all along offer a freemium version and offer other extra features that a small percentage of all users are willing to pay for. Essentially they trapped people into using the free version, and are forcing people to pay to now use on multiple devices. It feels shady and left a bad taste in my mouth towards their software and brand.

I've decided to look more into Mozillas free password manager. There are also those from the likes of Google's and Apple's built in password managers. After testing other products, I believe google or mozilla are the way to go, since apples is too proprietary (*they are a closed ecosystem - you can't as easily use cross platform and on other browsers)

Generating passwords can be very frustrating -- my choices were either too weak (and got rejected) or too complicated to remember easily without needing to note it down somewhere. To solve this problem, I would typically come up with one password every year and use it across all tools I use. And this was very risky, because once someone found it out, they could access every single thing I used. With Lastpass' robust password generator, I no longer have to worry about that. I am able to generate unique and strong passwords for each service and safely tuck it away without needing to keep it in memory.

I wonder if there could be a system where we could create baskets of associated passwords within the general vault. This would be useful in situations where I needed someone to do some work on some work tools that required password access. I could then give them access to the general vault and the specific basket with the tools they would be using.

LastPass is a fantastic software solution for so many reasons–– My chief use of it is so my team doesn't have to personally know all the various passwords to websites and SAAS solutions our organization uses. Certain users have access to using different sites without knowing what the passwords are. This makes me feel much more secure hiring freelancers. It also really helps to be able to safely give more access to our company resources for colleagues.

With some lower-grade freelancers I hired, they had a harder time figuring out how to use the software to log into websites that I had requested from them. LastPass is not completely foolproof, but it is the best alternative to keeping your login information safe when sharing with workers.