Lastpass
www.lastpass.com
Basic Free Premium $1 (78p) per month Lastpass is the only password manager in our test that did everything we’d expect. Its interface is well thought out and its tools cover all bases – from importing your browser’s passwords to generating secure passwords quickly. Perhaps most crucially of all, it stores all your passwords online (in a ‘vault’) and syncs them across your PC, tablet and phone for free.
Indeed it’s worth reiterating that point: Lastpass lets you access all of your passwords (no matter how many) from any device – the only manager here that offers that service for free. Not that money is everything, of course. If there was a better paid-for password manager we’d recommend it, but Lastpass proved itself in all our test criteria.
You need to register for a Lastpass account, then create a Master Password (see box page 55 for tips on making it as strong as possible). You can install the Lastpass program (or Windows 10 app) on your PC, and if you use Chrome or Firefox you can add a Lastpass extension (see screenshot below) all available at www.snipca.com/24792.
To access your password vault visit www.snipca.com/ 24793, then enter your email address and password. Alternatively, there are apps for Android ( www.snipca. com/ 24794) and IOS ( www.snipca. com/24795) that let you access and edit passwords from your phone and tablet.
Where it impressed
First and foremost is the ability to sync. Lastpass makes accessing your accounts on any device refreshingly simple. It also imports any passwords you may have already stored in Chrome, Firefox and other browsers with minimal fuss. Once you’ve imported your passwords, we recommend you subject them to the Security Challenge (see page 56) to see which aren’t strong enough.
The password generator is easy to use and very flexible. Click Generate Secure Password, then Advanced Options to see all options. We also liked the Form Fill tool that will fill in your personal information (such as name, address and bank-account details) when completing online forms. To access it, click Form Fills, followed by Add Form Fill, then complete any fields you’d like Lastpass to fill in for you. For extra peace of mind, click Advanced Settings, then tick the Require Password Reprompt button.
Room for improvement
Lastpass has a password-autochange tool designed to refresh your passwords according to a schedule. While this sounds great on paper, we simply couldn’t get it to work. We set it to refresh our passwords for Amazon and Facebook, but this failed each time we tried it. It also took so long to inform us that this had failed, that we could have changed the password 10 times over in the
interim. Even if it had worked, the autochanger only supports selected sites so it’s hardly the time saver it’s made out to be. To see if it works any better for you, open your vault, then click Auto Change Password (you’ll only see this option if the website supports this feature).
We’re also not entirely sold on the Lastpass phone and tablet app. In theory, it should fill in your username and password on any website you try to log into. In practice, Chrome’s password manager conflicts with Lastpass on our ipad, leaving us in a confusing limbo. You can switch off Chrome’s password manager, though – open Chrome, tap the three dots at the top right, Settings, Save Passwords, then switch off the Save Passwords slider.
Our verdict
Easy to use, secure, effective and free – we don’t think you can argue with that. All of these factors make Lastpass a worthy winner of our group test. Read our comprehensive guide to using it on page 55.