Best password manager .... for a technophobe.

JustAnotherSaver

My mother is terrible with passwords. She has all manner of passwords (not a bad thing) that are just variations of the same thing. These have just been jotted down on bits of paper, notepads etc that are god knows where so basically when she's needing to sign in to something she's swearing she's putting in the right details yet we know she certainly isn't as she'll be entering details into website A that should be for website B kind of thing.

So I'm thinking password manager to help her out.

FREE-FREE-FREE

That'll be #1 priority.

After that it has to be ease of use. Nothing overly complicated at all. No 100 steps to do something that another app can do in 2 steps.

She owns an iPhone as they're much simpler to use than Androids. I know some may disagree with that which is fine but i'm not going to get in to arguing black is white so we'll agree to disagree if that's the case.

I've had a little bit of use of LastPass myself. Nothing too involved.

I'm aware of Bitwarden although haven't really used it.

Just wondering what would be the best fit for someone in her case?

TELLIT01

I find a physical notebook the best method.  I actually use an address book with just the name of the site and the password.  It can't be hacked and is instantly accessible, unless my missus decided to have one of her rare cleaning frenzies when I'm out.

Scraps of paper are not a good idea.

Benny2020

Yes i use a notebook as its better than any password manager.
You just have to keep it tidy and up to date.
I know what you are going through though as my dad who is 90 has to deal with passwords for online accounts and has the same problem as your mother as of course he comes to me and i have to deal with it.
They like to watch some soap opera on channel 4 website and despite me telling them every week they still end up watching it in a tiny window because once it starts they dare not touch the mouse.
My dad is confused as to why the cursor and time bar disappear after a few seconds.

chrisw

iPhone should automatically save passwords for her. Make sure iCloud Keychain is turned on in settings.


Otherwise my mum uses a little book as above which is fairly foolproof.

inspectorperez

You just mention passwords in your post, but I wonder if you are also referring to other secure data which is often needed to access bank accounts like passcodes, answers to specific questions etc?

It can be a lot of detail to commit to writing in a notebook and electronic "safes" are often more convenient depending on the IT capabilities of the user.

Personally I have used Keepass on my desktop computer for many years which is a piece of free software which can be downloaded for Mac or Windows systems. It is regularly updated and is free of bloatware.

As you have specifically mentioned your mum has an iPhone, maybe using a computer desktop is out of the question? If that were the case wouldn't it be better to use fingerprint or facial recognition as an alternative to inputting passwords etc when logging in to those sites that offer this form of access?

k_man

Benny2020 said:

Yes i use a notebook as its better than any password manager.
You just have to keep it tidy and up to date.
I know what you are going through though as my dad who is 90 has to deal with passwords for online accounts and has the same problem as your mother as of course he comes to me and i have to deal with it.
They like to watch some soap opera on channel 4 website and despite me telling them every week they still end up watching it in a tiny window because once it starts they dare not touch the mouse.
My dad is confused as to why the cursor and time bar disappear after a few seconds.

Can a notebook:

Type long complex passwords into websites for you (so encourages non predictable passwords)?
Check automatically you are typing the right password, into the actual website, not a phishing site?
Check if any of your passwords are weak or have been leaked?
Automatically update passwords following a data breach?
Be accessible when not at home (please don't tell us you carry it around with you!)

A notebook has its benefits, for users with few passwords, who only need them in a secure physical location, who can type non alpha passwords well, but don't agree it is better than any password manager (apart from in a few ways).

Back to the OP, for an iPhone user using the built iCloud keychain as suggested is probably the easiest method.

This can also be accessed on a Windows PC

JustAnotherSaver

Thanks for the replies all. Few things...

Notebook - not a bad idea on the face of it however k_man touches on something that I really should've mentioned in the OP....

and that is that password managers can suggest/create all manner of wonderfully long passwords that 1) the user doesn't need to bother remembering and 2) are more secure than their password of "password" or their date of birth or whatever.

Another thing touched on is the extra data you sometimes need. So if I log in to Halifax for example, there's my username & password but then I'm needing to provide 3 characters from a 6 character pass. I'm not sure if iCloud / Apple Keychain thing helps out there?

Which brings me on to the topic of iPhone's autofilling keychain thing.....

I haven't experienced it myself as I made the switch to Android but I have something similar on my Samsung Galaxy S10. The problem is, sometimes it'll auto-fill, sometimes it wont. That's no good.

Because for me when it doesn't auto-fill and if I can't remember the password I just go in to my password manager. My mother may start having a flap, which she's done in the past and start resetting things or getting locked out of sites etc. Then when I finally get asked to help out she either can't remember what she did or says she did XYZ when you actually find out it was ABC (same as can't remember but with an extra step to throw you off - not intentionally I should add).

Also the fingerprint thing - great when it works. I have it with one of my financial apps, however occasionally it will have a bit of a hissy fit and require me to enter the password. I refer you back to what I just said about getting flustered.

So throughout all this there's actually only been 1 suggestion really which is KeePass.

I actually use this myself. I have it on my desktop PC & then to get it on my phone as well I just copy the file to dropbox, open it with the app & then delete it from dropbox. It requires me to keep it up to date on my phone (desktop is my main) but I'm perfectly capable of doing that.

If I open a new bank account (for example) then I can open KeePass, enter in the details as I create the account - sometimes just username & password, sometimes extra sets of info such as in Halifax's case, other times even more extra info on top of that (secret questions, many of them, telephone passwords etc). I have to do all this manually - again which >I< am fine with.

I just wondered if there was something better in my mothers situation. Say she creates an account for I don't know, ITV Hub, Vue Cinema, whatever, and it could ask her if she wants to save it to her [password manager] automatically & she can just click yes.

I don't know if that's an option. Maybe it's not.

Anyway hope that paints a clearer picture than my OP did.

tacpot12

I use Keeper, but you have to pay for this. I have recommended LastPass to others and they have been happy with it, but I don't use it myself so I'm not sure how a technophobe would get on with it. There is a free version though. 

chrisw

iCloud Keychain will automatically generate a strong password for a new site, ask if you want to use it or make your own and then save it.

If you need to see what the password was in the future for whatever reason, they are all listed against the relevant sites within Settings, passwords.

flaneurs_lobster

I use LastPass and I definitely agree that sometimes sites just do not allow LP to pop-up and offer to fill user-ids and passwords. This is particularly a problem on mobiles where having to go and fetch credentials from LastPass "manually" is not exactly straight forward. This does seem to be a function of web-site attributes/code rather than a failing of a particular password manager. It does (usually) ask if you want to store details of a new account setup.

There is ample note space within LastPass to store extra login stuff, phone numbers, first pet's name etc  with each entry.

400ixl

LastPass is not anywhere near as good as it was as a free option, the better option is Bitwarden, but it may be more complex to use than you need. Apple's keychain has gotten better over the last couple of years and if that can do the job then it may be worth experimenting with that first.