1Password Review

I recently started using 1Password to manage passwords when I realised that all my accounts shared the same password. 1Password is the password manager I chose to manage my passwords, and for many reasons, including the watchtower feature and the ability to generate strong passwords. With 1Password, you can easily have different passwords for every account, however also manage to log into those accounts every time. 1Password makes it easy to stay secure and make sure none of your accounts are compromised.

1Password is available for a huge amount of devices, from Windows to iOS to Android. This is the main reason I started using 1Password – iCloud Keychain worked well, but it wasn’t on my Windows computer too.

Features that 1Password offer also include secure note and document storing, 2 factor authentication code storage, autofilling website fields, linking similar items, and a lot more. I’ll go into the main features in a little more detail later in the post.

1Password can be used to store your 2FA codes, as seen at the bottom.

Firstly, how secure is 1Password? One of the major turnoffs of using a password manager is that you may be worried about putting all your eggs in one basket – after all, if they get the password to your 1Password account, surely they now have access to all your other accounts? You may think this is true, but it’s harder to get into someones 1Password account than you think. To log into a 1Password account, you require your email, password, and a secret key that you get when you sign up. You’ll need to put all of these things into the fields to be able to log in.

1Password is based around a system of vaults – you can have multiple vaults in each account – think of vaults as folders for your passwords. You can have a vault for work, for just work related passwords, and one for personal passwords such as social media. You can further organise your passwords by using tags, allowing you to see all passwords tagged regardless of what vault they are in. You can link items, which is useful if you store 2FA backup codes as a document in your 1Password account, as you can then link them to the account details to easily reach them. Of course, you can search your 1Password account to quickly find exactly the login you want, and this also works with files.

Tags are a useful way to organise your information in 1Password.

You can just about store any type of information in 1Password – from a picture to your passport, it can all be stored in 1Password, safely locked away behind AES-256 encryption and PBKDF2 key derivation. For each login, passport, credit card, or other piece of information you store in 1Password, you can add custom fields so it is tailored to what you need to store. One of my favourite features is the ability to use 1Password as a 2FA app, so that your 2FA codes are stored right along your passwords.

1Password allows you to easily insert passwords into the websites you use with the 1Password Mini feature. This comes with the app on WIndows and Mac, and on iOS you can tap the share button and tap 1Password to quickly insert the password into the field. This also works when inserting a 2FA code if you use 1Password to store 2FA codes. 1Password makes it easy to login by offering you all the accounts it has found for that website, so if you use multiple accounts you’ll be glad to know that it handles that flawlessly, allowing you to select the account you want to log in with.

1Password makes it easy to log into websites, even when you have multiple accounts.

When you want to sing up to a new service or update your password, 1Password Mini will open up and make it easy for you to generate a safe and secure password.

Speaking of password generation, this is one of my favourite features of 1Password. On any of the apps you can quickly generate a password, and then change the amount of characters you want it to be, and change the density of special symbols, numbers, characters and so much more, allowing you to tailor the password and make it secure whilst also meeting each websites individual requirements.

Generating passwords made easy.

A unique feature of 1Password is the Watchtower feature, which I find extremely useful. This keeps and eye on all your logins, and alerts you if any of the sites that you have an account with have been breached, which allows you to quickly change your password and secure your account again. It also allows you to see if you have reused passwords, and tells you about expiring items such as credit cards. If you want your accounts to be extra secure, it can also tell you which accounts have 2FA that can be enabled. You can read much more about the Watchtower feature here.

Finally, 1Password syncs all your information across your accounts so it’s always up to date, no matter what the device is.

If you have many accounts online, and you use the same password, be sure to get a password manager. If one account of yours gets hacked, it means that its easy to get into the other accounts if they share the same password. WIth 1Password, that won’t happen. I really recommend 1Password for those looking to stay secure online – it lets you create incredibly secure logins easily, and you’ll be able to remember all your passwords when you need to login.

For those worried about having all their eggs in one basket – it’s incredibly hard to get into someones 1Password account – not only do they need to know your email and password, but they also need to know your incredibly long and complex security key. If you are concerned about how secure 1Password is, you can check out this document from them – note that it hasn’t ever been hacked.

1Password is a great password manager, and I couldn’t recommend it more. You can get a free 30 day trial, and afterwards plans start from $2.99 a month.

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