Select and use a password manager

I have never used a password manager but I want to use one now. I have read the reviews and want to select between LastPass, Keepsafe and Dashlane.

Why now? I want to use my laptop and my little Surface Go 2 sometimes. I understand that the PW will give me better security than saving passwords in Firefox and sharing that way. Plus, I have a *lot* of Firefox passwords and it would be an issue to even load the same tabs in the Bookmarks bar on the Surface Go 2.

I would appreciate advice on which one is easier to get started with and to use. I would expect to want a paid level. My husband and I have 5 Windows computers in the house.

For 2fa I would like to use a Yubikey or a device from another maker that has the same function. I need to connect to USB A and C. For other devices I am using the doodads that convert USB A to C.

This is a whole new thing for me and I would appreciate your advice!

Strongly recommend that you add Bitwarden to the list, and even forget about the others. I had been a LastPass user for many years until they became mercenary about their product. Bitwarden is just as good in most areas, and better in the rest.

They have a free version which does everything I need but have upgraded to the paid version to support them. My wife uses the free version. It allows synchronization between my PC and smartphone.

I use Authy for 2FA and it is installed on my PC and smartphone, but Yubikey should also be fine but looks like more setup and fiddling to make it work with both devices.

Let me know if you need more details on usage of Bitwarden or Authy.

I've been using KeePass (in all it's many revisions and incarnations) since I can't remember. The thing I like about it is it is completely cross platform and easily accessible to any of my infinite amount of "junk" that I use.

I notice that some of the recommendations I have gotten are for password managers that I have not heard of before and are either open source or one-person operations.

What are the general beliefs about using such a password manager, no matter how wonderful it is? Is there a greater risk that the software would become unsupported, fall into the hands of another person and essentially become malware (as so many phone apps do), or just fail to work (leaving me in a lurch)? Or are some of the more reviewed products susceptible to the same risks, and should I look into these (mostly free and well-recommended by my respondents) programs?

I would appreciate your advice. I see that it is true that some of the free-plus-paid products that have more reviews are more complicated and I might like them less well because of this.

Just go with a mainstream PM that is widely used. Bitwarden falls into this category and is a commercial product but also has a free personal version. It is widely reviewed, open-sourced. so highly unlikely to unsupported any time soon.

I was a long term user of lastpass on their free account. When they changed the free option to only supporting 1 device type, I started hunting around for options. Bitwarden seemed like a pretty good fit.

However, I stuck with LastPass as my family of 4 all use it. The price was $3 a month for Premium for just myself, but for $4 a month I could get the family version, which is Premium for up to 6 accounts. For $48 a year, I could justify that cost for myself, wife and 2 kids.

Sorry to be so slow deciding. I had a scare and detoured into Macrium Reflect, but that is all done now.

I have pretty much limited my decision to Keeper and Bitwarden. I'll want some level of paid version and will install it on several Windows machines. I don't (presently) need to log in to paid content on my android phone. My husband reads most of his information on his phone but I really prefer a larger screen.

Keeper seems a bit more intuitive, and to have easy-to-follow instructions for setting up such things as giving my husband's laptop the capability to click on an emailed link to an article in a newspaper and seamlessly let him see it, without giving him access to the whole thing which might be confusing. (Most newspapers used to give visitors a few free articles each month, so this is a new need for me.)

Bitwarden is less expensive, and has been recommended by quandary and pparks1.

I have a few questions:

1. Once I have passwords in the PM, does it automatically log me in if I just click on an article? Sometimes I use my link to the home page, but if I run across an article in Google or such, how does it handle the login once I take the password away from Firefox?

2. On my main email host I have two accounts, one for personal and one for business and what I will call "More distantly social," such as tenforums. What do PM's do in this case? One review talked about naming an account "personal email" and "public email." Named in what? Do you have to go through an interface to get it to log in to a site?

3. Macrium Reflect astounded and intimidated me with its 485 page manual. Keepsafe doesn't appear to have much in the way of a manual, although I see in the review that it walks you through the iniial steps well. Are there significant differences between these programs in just learning how to use them and find answers to questions such as my question 2? I appreciate all of the responses from tenforums to just ask for help, and you folks are great, but I wouldn't have known about the existence of the possibility in my question 2 without the review, so I wouldn't have asked.

Should I expect all modern online usage information to be like Zork?

Thanks again for your help.

1. Generally yes. It will at least populate the userid and password and then press enter.

2. From a browser, select the PM icon, start typing the account, and it should show the entry. Select it and that site will be started and user info populated. Very easy.

3. MR has lots of option but is very simple to use. You can find a Windows for Dummies book that is hundreds of pages long, and that is just for starters.

Just start off slow using the free version of any of these products, then decide if they are suitable then go for the paid version, or try a different one.