Should I Continue to Use the Password Manager?
You should use a password manager because it is one of the best things you can do to protect your digital life. With it, you can create strong, incredibly complex passwords that you can’t even remember yourself. Your password manager will save them for you, and you can authenticate to this password store using a combination of an easier-to-remember password (or passphrase) and multi-factor authentication.
But which password manager should you use? This is a real question. And when your chosen password manager doesn’t appear on everyone’s favorites list, what does that mean for your safety? Lifehacker reader Ian asked me exactly this question in Tech 911 this week:
I have been subscribing to Roboform for many years now. Maybe decades. I found it to be a problem, and I noticed that it never appeared in the Top X Password Vault articles. Is it because the new ones are much better or Roboform doesn’t advertise that much? Something other?
The best password manager is the one you always use
I confess, Jan; I’ve never heard of Roboform. Or at least I didn’t call right away when I read your question. Although his name has been featured on various lists of “best password managers” on the Internet, I have never seen him receive top honors. We tend to live in a world like LastPass or 1Password – in fact, 1Password and Bitwarden , as the latter is an open source password manager that’s cheaper than LastPass (saves $ 26 a year) and almost as good.
To answer your question, it’s okay if Roboform isn’t the best of the best password managers out there. Here’s why: As long as it does a good enough job and doesn’t suffer from any major security flaws, it protects you. You are used to the way it works, you are probably well versed in its interface and use it regularly. That alone makes Roboform the best password manager (for you).
Your situation reminds me of the “upgrade fallacy” or something I love to think about whenever I see people rushing towards the latest and greatest hardware for their desktop PCs. I would like, for example, a brand new Nvidia RTX 3080 card, and I almost jumped into a frantic chase after it when it came out. I talked myself out of doing this because while it’s better than what I have it doesn’t make my existing setup a bad one (RTX 2080). In fact, what I already have is great for the nuances of my ultra-wide monitor and the games I play (currently: World of Warcraft ). I don’t need more firepower until something piques my interest, it’s a combination of insanely good graphics and ray tracing. And even then, I can probably still get a pretty decent frame rate with my existing setting. Why upgrade?
There are better password managers than Roboform that offer useful disadvantages Roboform features. For example, the mighty 1Password has an incredibly handy Watchtower feature that alerts you when the passwords you are using are discovered in a data breach. And, as Wirecutter notes in their review of password managers, Roboform hasn’t gone through a third-party security audit .
Is this a big deal? If you’re starting from scratch and looking for your very first password manager, of course. If you’re already satisfied with Roboform and use it for password management on a daily basis, you can certainly go on to something better. I would only recommend doing this if there is an easy way to migrate passwords from a service you are currently using to a service you want to try in the future. If it seriously disrupts your daily routine, it’s not worth it – even if you end up saving $ 20 a year or getting some extra features beyond the general security that a decent password manager provides.
I understand that some readers might think this sounds a little odd, coming from a tech tip reviewer whose normal reaction in all cases is “update, update, update”. Remember, not everyone is tech-savvy. And maybe it’s a titanic enough battle to get a person to use a password manager to get started. (I still find it difficult to convince my smart and intelligent friends that they should use a great password manager instead of the browser’s simpler “save passwords” feature.)
Do not rock the boat unless necessary. Update if you really want to, but know that you won’t be missing out on a lot if you use your password manager correctly: complex, unique passwords for all of your services. If you want to be supremely secure, you can set up a Google alert for every mention of Roboform. This way, in case anything happens to your chosen password manager, you will be able to switch to something different (and better). But if you are satisfied with what you have and how much it costs, everything is fine.