Trial expired notice / update lock-in

laptopleon

Hi,

Much to my surprise, I just noticed a 'trial expired' notification when I used the 1Password auto-fill browser function. If I remember correctly, I purchased a license for 1Password 3 only about 2 years and 3 months ago. Of course we could debate about how often it's is reasonably to ask me to buy a new license for a utility, but this is not what I expected, based on two decades of experience with other Mac OS / OS X utilities. Then again, Agile Bits is, of course free to choose to do so.

An upgrade license will cost me $25, which is quite steep for a utility and is more than other Mac password managers cost (not for an update, but for a full license). Again, not the price that I'd expect for an update, but Agile Bits is not bound to my expectations.

Any software maker is free to create any update they want and ask whatever they want for it, just as any customer should be free to choose to update or not.

However, what happend now is that first I updated to 1PW 5, which happend without any alert asking for a fee or a warning that it would be a paid update. Only now, after some time, it asks for a new payment. I think it would be only fair and reasonable to inform users ahead of a payed update, not after. It was not made clear to me that installing 1PW 5 was a 'trail'.

Meanwhile I found out 1PW5 is a free update to 1PW4 licensees, so why not cut the early adopters a break?

Bottom line: I had expected a relatively high price would result in the opposite: A relatively long licensing time / low update price. Now I'm basically locked in a payed update, because of the way this $25 'trail expired' surprise is brought. This does not feel right.

danco

I think your expectations are unrealistic. It is standard practice that point upgrades are free, but full version upgrades are paid (I have plenty programs where I am not using the most current version, because I don't feel like paying the upgrade fee and the older versions still work well). AgileBits could have charged both for upgrades from 3 to 4 and from 4 to 5, but have made the latter free. The upgrade from 3 to 4 was free to those who bought 3 close enough to the release date of 4.

The upgrade cost from 3 is in line with the full cost. I agree that this is high, but some very useful programs do have a high cost. Other password managers often have a yearly cost, whereas 1PW license continues until changes to the OS prevent the program from working. People are still using 1PW3 on Yosemite, and you could revert, and get a refund of the upgrade cost, if you really wanted, so you are not locked in.

I suppose that whether you were told that the upgrade to 5 was a paid upgrade depends on how you made the upgrade. If it was not mentioned to you, I guess this is because AgileBits were expecting people to be upgrading from 4 to 5, for which there was no charge. If you had previously upgraded from 3 to 4, you would probably have been told that this was a paid upgrade.

laptopleon

I had to redo the install twice (for other reasons) so then I would have overlooked it three times. That's unlikely.

They price is non-debateble, I get that, but the way the updated is brought is not very customer-friendly, to put it mildly. If this is the standard at Agile Bits, I'm out.

littlebobbytables

Hi @laptopleon,

I don't know what particular route you've taken during your time with 1Password but I know that when 1Password 4 was released we did stress that it was a paid upgrade from 1Password 3. Now we did have a bug where once the trial expired, 1Password 4 wasn't very vocal leading to some confusion when we tightened this up a bit.

What this means is it was possible for some users to be running 1Password 4 in an unlicensed state and then it seems like it was sprung on them whereas they'd actually had an extended trial. For anybody that had purchased and applied their licence to their copy of 1Password 4 the transition to 1Password 5 should be seamless given 1Password 5 was a free update to all existing 1Password 4 users. We apologise for the confusion that this bug caused.

As for why 1Password 5 was a free update for 1Password 4 users and not earlier is that 1Password 4 was made a paid upgrade as it represented complete re-write of the entire program. That's why 1Password 4 was the paid upgrade. While 1Password 5 contains a lot of improvements they built on top of the established code so we thought we were being nice when we offered it for free.

As for our upgrading policy, all I can do is point out our AgileBits Software Licenses page where we state:

When you purchase AgileBits software your license will never expire and you can use it on the current version of the licensed application indefinitely. While the license itself will never expire, system updates from Apple could cause certain aspects of some software to stop working. For example, the Safari 5 upgrade stopped 1Password 2 from working correctly and required an updated version of 1Password.

&

Your purchase entitles you to free updates until the next major version upgrade. That means if you buy a license for version 2 of a product, you will get all 2.x releases for free, but upgrading to version 3 might require another purchase.

If you wish we can assist you in returning to whatever version you have licensed and you are free to do so. We still have 1Password 3 users for example although it comes with the caveat above that if you continue to upgrade the OS and browsers there will eventually be a point where certain functionality breaks down.

laptopleon

Although I usually try to read the licenses before I buy, I can't say I know them by heart ;·)

You mention several points that indeed are more or less related, so I'd like to reflect on that.

I have no reason to doubt it was necessary to re-write 1PW. Sometimes platforms change and Agile Bits does not have any control over it, but on the other hand: Neither do I. Also, these things are to be expected.

Meanwhile, the functionality of 1PW 5 has not changed that much for me a user – neither do I want it to. So as far as I'm concerned it's mainly maintenance.

I can only conclude that the price of 1PW is about $ 25 per year (new license is $ 50, have to update after 2 years for $ 25 for the next year or so). That's excluding the price of 1PW iOS app for my iPhone. I'm sorry but that's just more than I was expecting on forehand or willing to pay for the functionality of storing my passwords.

Again, this is not something that Agile or I have any influence on, but a factor that also weighs in is, that the OS X keychain now works better (than when I bought 1PW 3) and syncs with iOS, making 1PW less unique and necessary and therefore harder to justify a ± $25 per year price tag, at least with my budget.

danco

Have you actually paid for an upgrade? If not, as has been pointed out, AgileBits will help you return to the version you have paid for. You can continue using it until an OS upgrade forces a change.

And paying for upgrades from time to time is standard procedure. If you have not run into it before, I can only conclude that you don't usually bother with third-party software. For me, among the programs I use regularly that have paid upgrades, and where I have decided to stick with the old version, are Graphic Converter, PathFinder, Audio Hijack, and quite a few others.

The basic cost of 1PW is high; only you can decide if it is worth it. As you say, the newer OS keychain may make programs like 1PW of less value.

Drew_AG

Hi @laptopleon,

I'm very sorry for any confusion about all this! 1Password 3 for Mac does not automatically update itself to version 4 or higher, so at some point you would have needed to download version 4 or 5 separately from our website. The download is free because it can be used as a trial version for 30 days. I think a lot of the confusion is due to the fact that (as mentioned earlier in this thread), there was a bug in 1Password 4 for Mac where, in certain cases, an unregistered/trial copy would not expire. That was fixed in version 5, which explains why you just started to see the Trial Expired message recently.

1Password 3 for Mac was originally released way back in November 2009. Over the next several years, we released 66 free updates to 1Password 3, which included 738 changes (many of which were huge changes that required months of development work). After nearly 4 years, in October 2013 we released 1Password 4 for Mac, which was re-written from the ground up and required over a year of work from our development team. Therefore, we decided version 4 needed to be a paid upgrade so we could continue development. However, anyone who purchased version 3 in 2013 was given a free upgrade to version 4. Anyone who purchased version 3 prior to 2013 is given a 50% discount if they choose to upgrade.

As previously mentioned, 1Password 5 was a free upgrade for anyone with a license for 1Password 4. That means that in the nearly 5 and a half years since we released 1Password 3, there has only been 1 paid upgrade for the Mac version.

Now, we never force an upgrade, and you can certainly go back to using 1Password 3 if you'd like. It's still a great product, even if it doesn't have all the latest bells and whistles. You can download version 3 from this site and activate it with your license code. If you need any help with that, just let us know.

Again, I apologize for any confusion, and I hope this helps to clear that up. If you decide to stick with 1Password and ever have more questions or need help, we're here for you! :)

laptopleon

I bought 1PW3 on november 23, 2012, so I don't get to use the 1PW4 update.

I downloaded 1Password 3 and it seems to work with the existing database, but the Safari plugin doesn't work with it. Is it possible to get the current version of Safari (8.0.3, running on current version of OS X, 10.10.2) working with 1PW3, with an older plugin perhaps?

littlebobbytables

Hi @laptopleon,

If you go through the dropdown menu option 1Password > Install Browser Extensions you'll be taken to the correct page to download the older extension.

laptopleon

Thanks, I'll try that.

M1CDM

Hi

Today I too have the same problem.

I've just opened my iMac - on Mavericks and 1Password V4
and then my MacBook Air - on Yosemite and 1Password V5

.........and BOTH are saying 'Trial Expired'.

Granted I have not been charged for updates over the years so far.

However, I purchased some three years ago, but there was never any message or communication that I would have to pay for an upgrade. OIf there had been, I would not have resisted reasonable update charges were I asked - as you should be rewarded for development.

Nevertheless, to your humble customer this seems a less than unhelpful way to reward an existing client with a 'Trial Expired' - when I've been with you a long time as a paid up consumer.

I cannot get my Licence number back as it says I don't have one.

I think bought it on a now expired email - removed by AgileBits

• or it may be on my current mail - removed by AgileBits

I'll be happy to go back to the version I originally bought or pay an upgrade, but to be treated as any new customer on a Trial does not give me a warm feeling.

I'd appreciate any help you can give me.

Many thanks

littlebobbytables

Hi @M1CDM,

I hope you don't mind, I've removed the email addresses you posted as these are public forums and you probably don't want to broadcast them to everybody.

We can help but given we're going to ask for personal details we'll take it to email. So if you can email us please at support+licenses@agilebits.com with the following information.

• Your full name as you would have used it at the time of purchase.
• Your physical address that you would have supplied at the time of purchase.
• A list of possible email addresses you may have used. If some are inaccessible now can you mark those and let us know what you would like to use as your preferred email address going forward.
• A link to your post (https://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/comment/189619/#Comment_189619)

Once you've emailed us you'll get an automated reply back with a ticket ID. If you could post the ID here it will help us link up the two and we'll look into it :smile:

danco

Hi @M1CDM,

When you upgraded from 1PW3 to 1PW4, you should have been told that this was a paid upgrade. 1PW4 to 1PW5 is free.

There was a bug in 1PW4 that meant that some people were never told that their trial had expired, and were able to continue past the trial period. This was squashed in 1PW5 and maybe in later versions of 1PW4. That's why you are only just being told of an expired trial.

Once AgileBits can find your license for 1PW3 (by checking email addresses) you will be able to get an upgrade price from them.

M1CDM

Hi danco

That's kind of you to explain what has no doubt happened to me. I reckon I was one of those you describe.

From their response, unlike some of the giant companies that don't care whether you live or die; like Epson printers and Adobe photographic software, these guys seem very efficient, so I'm sure they'll sort it out.

I don't mind paying an upgrade, as I adore their software (and I have it on iPad & iPhone too). It's just the shock of finding I'm suddenly 'timed out'!

Regards

littlebobbytables

Hi @M1CDM,

Thank you for emailing in. Sara found your email and has let me know so you should have both a reply from us and an automated email containing your previously purchased licences. If you have any follow up questions of any kind please do ask. For reasons on continuity it's probably best to either pick the forums or the email and to stay with one, that way if anybody else here at AgileBits needs to bring themselves up to speed to assist it's easier :smile:

If we can help we'll be here :smile: