……AND THE REST
True Key www.truekey.com
Basic Free; Premium $3.33 (£2.56) per month Dashlane comes a close second to Lastpass and has much to recommend it: a great selection of tools, including a password changer; a Security Dashboard that scores your existing passwords and recommends actions; secure form-filling for your personal details; and encrypted notes. In fact, just about everything Lastpass has.
The setup process made short work of importing our existing passwords from Chrome, Internet Explorer and Firefox. Click File, ‘Import passwords’, then select the browser or other password manager you want to import from. Installing the Dashlane extension for your browser is just as straightforward – click Extensions at the top of its home screen, then click the relevant browser/password manager in the list.
We were also impressed by how thorough its Security Dashboard is. To use it, click Security Dashboard in the left-hand column of Dashlane’s home screen. It gives your passwords an overall security score and then suggests where you can make improvements. Click Show at the bottom right to see the individual scores for each of your passwords (see screenshot above right).
Dashlane’s password changer – unlike Lastpass’ equivalent tool – actually worked when we tested it. However, it’s still limited. It won’t, for example, change your Facebook or Amazon passwords. In fact of our 100 or so passwords (including for Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Sainsbury’s and Yahoo), it only automatically changed the passwords for six accounts (see screenshot below left). We’re not sure what’s worse, Lastpass’s broken albeit ambitious feature or Dashlane’s functional but severely limited version. Either way, it’s as well that neither password manager is trying to sell itself on their respective automatic changers.
Dashlane’s Android and IOS apps are well designed but won’t sync with your PC unless you upgrade to Dashlane Premium (£2.56 per month – more if your bank charges transaction fees for international payments).
Dashlane offers a number of useful, easy-to-use tools, though its password changer is so limited that it probably should be dropped altogether. It runs Lastpass very close, but fails to grab top spot because synchronising passwords between devices isn’t free. From the moment you install Dashlane it saves every change you make to your existing passwords. To see these, click Tools, then Password History. By default, they will be ordered by the date and time the last change was made. You can change this to other orders, such as alphabetical. Free; Premium £19.99 per month We were pleasantly surprised by Sticky Password. Though it lacks the features of Lastpass and Dashlane, it’s very easy to use. In the premium version you can sync passwords between your PCS, tablet and phone via Sticky Password’s secure cloud.
Importing our passwords and installing the browser extension was simplicity
itself thanks to the clear, easy-to-follow instructions. We also like the way the program locks itself if it’s left unused for 10 minutes, ensuring your passwords are safe, even if your PC itself is unlocked. If you’d rather keep your passwords off the internet, there’s an option to store them on your PC. To do so, go to Sticky Password’s main menu, click ‘Sync – cloud’ in the bottom-left corner, then choose ‘Sync – local’ (see screenshot below).
It lacks features, such as a passwordstrength analyser or auto-change tool. It also looks a bit basic compared to the other password managers, but we can live with that.
Sticky Password might be basic, but its straightforward setup makes it easy to recommend, particularly if you want to keep your passwords on your PC.
Basic Free Premium £19.99/year Password Box was an excellent, free password manager, until it attracted the attention of Intel who promptly bought it. Rather than leave it be, Intel closed Password Box, and used its technology to create the less-than-excellent True Key.
The free version of True Key lets you save a measly 15 passwords (to save more you’ll have to pay £19.99 per year). You might think 15 passwords is plenty, but it isn’t. This writer has 119 passwords and that isn’t excessive.
We struggled to import passwords. It’s simple in theory – click Settings (the cog at the top right), Import, click the ‘Check for passwords’ button, then the logo of the password manager or browser you want to import from. In practice, the Import button was missing in the Edge extension.
And while it was present in Chrome’s extension, clicking the Import button opened a pop-up message urging us to download the True Key program (see screenshot below). So we did this, but still couldn’t import our passwords. Instead we were asked to install the program again in a never-ending loop. The solution is to uninstall all your True Key browser extensions. Open the program, sign in, then follow the instructions. Things really shouldn’t be this complicated.
Though we couldn’t recommend it, there are some plus points to True Key. It syncs across all your devices (though, unlike Lastpass, you’re restricted to 15 passwords unless you pay for Premium). It supports biometrics, meaning you can unlock it with a fingerprint, or simply by moving your head in a certain way (as long as your PC, tablet or phone has a camera). It also lets you set a ‘trusted device’ (for example, a tablet or phone) that will unlock True Key simply by being near your PC.