I feel like I am in a minority of one when it comes to software pricing and loyalty to proven products. When I got into computing in the 80’s, commercial software programs typically sold for $300, $500, $750 and $1000 a shot, “followup patches” were free but when the next full version of the software came out there was seldom a discount for existing users because the new version was always touted as a “top-to-bottom reworking.”
Now software is often available for sale for the price of a cup of coffee no doubt due to the economy of scale involved in sales by internet download with no pressing of individual disks, cardboard or retail brick and mortar stores and yet people still complain, whereas I have been with 1Password almost from its early introduction as an innovator and find their present pricing to be well worth the price and a deserved reward for creating a whole new class of software protecting all of us; and I have no intention of jumping ship from AgileBits.
And yet I wonder as to the lack of loyalty. When I first met the creator of TypeIt4Me it was over CompuServe and I have stuck with it as a perfect text expander now sold by his son, yet people seem thrilled to tout and praise and rush to purchase imitators selling virtually identical software for much higher prices.
It is all a puzzle to me. Although I am now up in years and retired I still think that innovators - not imitators - deserved to be recognized and rewarded, and I say this strictly as a consumer who was never in the business of software production or sale and couldn’t write a line of code, but I am glad to pay for the software created by ingenuity I do not personally possess.
Thanks for sharing your positive experience with Bitwarden, it’s particularly helpful coming from someone who has used 1Password. I’ve thought about switching me and my wife to Bitwarden but it doesn’t support Touch ID, something we’ve come to appreciate.
I don’t have hard numbers on this, but my impression from talking with Dave Teare and Roustem Karimov in December 2018 is that most of the employees are support staff. Which would be expected for a company with a very large number of customers. And if you read through the silly titles on their Team page, a large number are support-related.
Yes, Bitwarden does support TouchID, absolutely no problem after the initial login to the application with your passphrase. Had it working on an iPhone 8+ across four or five browsers and apps. I’ve had some trouble with FaceID. The workaround is to create a numeric pin for quick access when in applications. The numeric pin won’t work unless Bitwarden is already open and unlocked (with passphrase).
With any of these password managers, there’s serious decisions to be made about tradeoffs between security and convenience. The most convenient (unlock device, all passwords available in all apps) is inherently the least secure while the most secure (unlock password manager with two-factor identification for ever access to the password manager, lock time in five minutes or less) is impossibly inconvenient.
Bitwarden lets you make your own decisions about access requirements and lock time. Which is the best way to go, as there’s no one size fits all for security unfortunately. Most users won’t tolerate any inconvenience for the sake of security. Just getting users to stop using the same one word password across all websites is progress (this isn’t theory: I conducted internal security audits in our software firm where everyone knows the security risks with both LastPass and Bitwarden audit tools).
In any case, Bitwarden does integrate fully with iOS and Mac OS X, with browser extensions for at least Safari, Chromium, Firefox, Chrome, Opera… Most of our team use Macs.
I agree. Most of their staff appear to be engaged in either code maintenance and improvement and/or support.
In today’s world, what company uses their own personnel for marketing? Marketing is done by contract with outside companies whose business and expertise is in marketing.
Even though I have been retired for years, I consider the cost of 1Password to be trivial compared to the trust I put in it and the peace of mind it provides in return. Not to mention my belief in supporting innovators not imitators.
Disclaimer - I have no connection with AgileBits other than as a longtime satisfied user going back to its earliest introduction.
That’s good to know, what I’ve read is Bitwarden does not yet support Touch ID on Macs. Bitwarden on the desktop is an Electron app (which in itself is not great but not a dealbreaker) and apparently requires Touch ID capability to be in Electron first. The good news is Electron v6 came out last year with support for Touch ID and following GitHub links from the Bitwarden community forum, Bitwarden updated to use Electron v6 at the end of January.
Hi Curtis,
There’s no real need for TouchID support on Macs, as one unlocks Bitwarden with the main login passphrase and then one doesn’t have to unlock it again until sleeping or restarting the computer or whatever the end user chooses as a trigger. None of my Macs have TouchID and I’ve never felt frustrated by Bitwarden on desktop. As I pointed out, on iOS devices with FaceID Bitwarden doesn’t support FaceID which makes a second shorter pin code for fast access in a browser or other application more or less a necessity. Very keen to see FaceID support.
TouchID on iOS devices works just the way you’d hope.
Further close observation of Bitwarden on my iPhone 11 on 13.3.1 reveals that FaceID works and works well for authorisation for the main application. It’s the extensions which require adding a short pincode for easy access (my main password for use on the website and for logging in on desktop application is long and complex).
As the main security on an iPhone X, XS, XR, 11 is FaceID at the front gate, I’m currently comfortable using a shorter numeric pincode for Bitwarden extension access. I hope FaceID is added to the extensions soon too.
A capable and secure Bitwarden application with good workflow on iPhone swayed me from LineageOS (open source Android) to iOS. On Android, I wouldn’t be comfortable keeping passwords at all. With complex unique passwords, a mobile device without any way to easily log in would be much less useful. No doubt it would be possible to keep passwords securely on Android but I’m certain a secure workflow would be pretty rough (full passphrase to access them).