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by jefftk 1264 days ago
Have you tried getting them set up with Apple's (if they're on Mac/iOS) or Google's (if they're on Chrome/Android)? Using something built-in is almost always the lowest friction option, and it sounds like it's friction that's keeping them from the sticking with the password managers you've tried them on.
2 comments

I dislike the idea of recommending these OS-specific password managers because what if they need to access their passwords on another machine? But I'm guessing for most folks that's not a concern. I also don't trust them _nearly_ as much as I do 1Password, but that's at least some prejudice on my side.
I’d trust them more. They’re likely behind the same security barrier as the rest of Google’s / Apple’s services. They’re probably getting attacked all day every day and holding up so I’d imagine they’re way more robust than most smaller companies.
It isn't about how easy/difficult it is to hack them. Any password manager I use needs to be un-hackable in any realistic sense. It's about trusting the company. And before I get flack about "nothing is un-hackable" blah blah, see "in any realistic sense".
But in the real world ease of use is _everything_ for the vast majority of people.
Exactly. When I worked at 1Password everyone in the company knew this, and were trying to vastly improve the user experience. I've been gone for about 18 months now and I don't see many changes, which is unfortunate, but I know it's something they are passionate about. I hope they can figure it out, I think UX and easy of use are difficult things to get right for password managers.
Both the Apple and Chrome password managers sync to the cloud so as long as they can sign in to their account on another computer or phone, they can still get access to the saved passwords.
But only when using an Apple product (for the iCloud solution) or Android device or Chrome browser (for Google's), right?

My parents use whatever browser their company has installed on their computers, which I think is Chrome for one person and Edge for the other. Their home laptop is a Surface Laptop device with Edge on it.

It'd work for their phones, and I honestly don't see them switching to Android anytime soon, but it's still not available all the time, and I haven't been able to get them to do anything but autofill of the passwords I created for them. Even as is, telling them to go to a dedicated app to copy a password to use on their laptops is a step too much. Adding more complexity isn't going to help.

With iCloud for Windows, keychain passwords are accessible in Chrome and Edge.
> what if they need to access their passwords on another machine

In the case of saving them to Google/Chrome, they can be accessed online here https://passwords.google.com/

I don't know if Firefox or Apple have a similar online tool to access them.

Apple/Chrome ones don’t help setting up 2-factor codes/etc. Ie, you don’t want the second factor to be SMS.

They’ve decided passkeys are the way to go so they don’t support TOTP or that stuff natively.

1Password handles TOTP quite well.

It's recent, but Safari does support TOTP now.

https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/automatically-fill-in...