What's going on with 1Password 4 and local accounts?
Your local account users have been patient for such a long time now stuck with a product that's been in maintenance mode for what, one and half years? From reading the blog posts back then I understood you had to start again in order to improve the app and work in a Windows 10\metro app world. That would be fine if I knew i'd be able to move over to version 6 soon after such a long wait but it sounds like this isn't going to happen?
The problem of course is that over time local account holders have been left out in the cold while the push has been to try and force people to move over to a subscription model if they want a client that's being developed. Instead of local account support being a priority other things are being worked on and it's becoming clear supporting your local account holders doesn't seem to be your focus at all.
The Windows 4 application has always lagged behind the Mac client and becomes laggy with a large number of items, there's a long list of feature requests for it so it's not a great place to leave a big chunk of your customers while you work on other things.
Can we please have some upfront honestly about what you are planning for local account holders for the next 6-12 months please? Are we still going be stuck in this situation come Autumn, what about the end of the year and the start of 2018?
What I would like answers to-
- Is local account support definitely going to be added to 1Password 6?
- If so a rough timeframe as to when this will happen - say within a 6 month window.
Is this too much to ask?
It's not good enough to ask customers to continue to use a product in maintenance mode for such a long time with still no commitment to what our fate is to be going forward.
If local account support is not planned, or not planned for another 6 months or a year (a wait of 2 years by that point!) please be upfront and honest and say so at least we know where we stand and we can make our own plans.
Thanks
1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided
Comments
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I just want to re-iterate that I work in business environment that is a customer of 1Password. We are actively looking at other password managers and wish to migrate off 1password because we want multiple, local vaults and the Windows version of 1password is a legacy product that does not have Edge integration and does not behave like the Mac version.
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reck you are speaking so true words.
I hope the 1Password Team won't hide behind Promises and Phrases and speak honest this time.
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It really is a legacy product at this point. We're getting patches to keep it alive, e.g. to support browser updates etc but actual development has all but stopped a long time ago, so I can see why people are looking at other alternative such as enpass.
If 1Password 4 is a dead end with no development planned, and local accounts in version 6 still aren't even being worked on then it does leave us in a no mans land.
Agilebits have one of the best customer support and dev interaction i've come across and i've never found anything to criticise them about until now. With such high standards its really surprising to me that they think this situation is ok and after a year i've become tired of waiting for them to tell me what's going on.
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Has the standalone, non-subscription option been discontinued? When I go to the 1Password site I don't see any mention of the standalone version only subscription pricing is listed.
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@reck, et al: There isn't anything new to share at this time, as we continue to buckle down and work on developing, testing, and supporting 1Password — including 1Password 4. While it is no longer under active development as of earlier this year (which is why it's no longer being sold), we've actually been spending more time on that lately to get it ready for upcoming browser changes so that everyone who depends on it can continue to for the foreseeable future.
Getting back to 1Password in general, Dave, one of the founders of the company, wrote about all of this in great detail earlier, so I'll quote that, as there isn't anything more to add at this time:
I’d like to share with you our Windows plans so you know where we are headed. Before jumping in I need to set the stage and explain where we’ve been. Then we can cover where we’re at and finish off with where we’re headed.
1Password 4 is our current official version for standalone license holders. Version 4 is based on the same technologies the first version used when it was released in 2011. Designed since the beginning for standalone licenses, it does this quite well and has support for syncing with Dropbox and even allows you to sync completely offline using WLAN Sync. The implementation was done using Delphi, and while this is a very good and capable programming language, Microsoft has introduced several newer technologies that we wanted to take advantage of.
1Password 6 is our leap into the future that uses these new technologies exclusively and we are in the middle of rewriting everything from version 4 into this brave new world. It’s both very exciting and terrifying. The excitement comes from being able to use all the latest and greatest technologies, and the terror comes from needing to rewrite over 5 years worth of code.
We knew from the start that 1Password 6 was going to be a monumental undertaking and so we tried to keep the feature set as small as possible. At the time we had zero support for 1Password Teams on Windows (our families and personal memberships didn’t exist yet) and we had full support for standalone licenses in version 4. Since we had a working solution for standalone vaults and given the effort version 6 would require, we made the decision early on to focus exclusively on Teams. To this end, 1Password 6 is currently focused exclusively on our new hosted services and so there is indeed no support for standalone licenses or other sync methods.
I know a lot of people are using Dropbox and WLAN Sync and want to use this new version, and I certainly don’t want to do anything to upset any of our longtime supporters. At the same time, we have a lot of plates in the air we need to juggle so we needed to choose what to work on. The choice we made for version 6 was a whole new app focused exclusively on 1Password memberships.
One could question our decision to start from scratch and completely rebuild everything. There are certainly many “post mortem” blog posts from other companies that have taken the same route in the past. Indeed it represents a mammoth undertaking as it takes time to build quality software. In our case, it took over 5 years to make 1Password 4 what it was at the time we decided to start over. We knew this going in and we were indeed a little scared, but our excitement outweighed that. We were excited because we wanted to use the latest and greatest technologies so we could create the best 1Password experience possible on Windows.
Fast forward a year or so and we announced our beta and after toiling away and working our way through the beta process, I was really excited to announce 1Password 6 for Windows a few months later (back in October of last year). It was a good release, but like any “dot oh” release, there are a lot of things to polish and work through to make it really shine. And with this “dot oh” version being a complete rewrite, it’s no surprise that we’re still working through this process.
It would have made everyone lives a lot easier if this release had complete support for all the standalone features but it simply wasn’t possible. I think it’s easy to underestimate the amount of effort involved to roll out support for Dropbox. I know I fall into this trap often myself so I think it would be helpful to elaborate on what’s required.
We can start with the ability to sync your data as it gives a pretty good glimpse of what’s involved to go from a 1Password membership solution to one that also supporting standalone vaults.
Syncing would require us to add two additional synchronization systems: WLAN Sync and Dropbox. Both of these do things completely differently from one another, and both are completely different than how our 1Password accounts sync (accounts sync much faster and have push notifications for live data reload because we have complete control over both the clients and server so we’re able to optimize the protocol and minimize how much data needs to be exchanged). Syncing is one of the most difficult problems in software today and is very difficult to get right once, let alone three times.
And once we add these additional sync solutions, there’s also a lot of tricky things we need to do for conflict resolution along with new windows for adding multiple vaults and guarding against all the other crazy scenarios people can find themselves in. For example, what should 1Password do if you remove your data from Dropbox and add a new data file there? Or what happens if the files on Dropbox simply disappear? Did the user mean to delete the files or was it an accident? Should we import a missing file and thereby delete the local copy? And what do we do when a user restores an old backup or imports their files multiple times? All of these scenarios need to be accounted for and tested rigorously to ensure your data remains safe.
The complexity introduced by distributed data sources is huge. So much so that one of my favourite things about our hosted accounts is 1Password.com is the single source of truth. This allows us to greatly simplify things across the board, both for users, our developers, and support teams.
Now of course that’s just for syncing. For a complete solution we would also need to wire in license validation, create a new trial expiry window and purchase experience, guard against fraud, update our model to support additional data formats, extend our website to support the new license, document things for new users, and the list goes on from there.
All of these things may not seem like a very big deal on their own, but they add up quickly. As such I’ve asked our Windows team to make version 6 the best it can be with an exclusive focus on hosted accounts. Once this is completed, we can take a step back and decide where we go from there.
As much as I would have loved to have had full support for everything, our time is finite so we needed to pick a few priorities and roll with them. There are a lot of additional things going on behind the scenes that we need to complete as well so at this point in time I simply can’t say when we would be able to begin work on this. I’m trying to be as open as possible by saying this is not something we’re working on at this moment, but I can’t pull back the curtain any further than that.
The easiest way forward is to sign up for a 1Password membership. Doing so will not only get you the latest version of 1Password on Windows, but it will also get you a lot of additional benefits that weren’t available to Windows users in version 4. For example, it’s very easy to have multiple vaults on Windows now (before you had to manually add each additional vault) and you can switch between them without needing to unlock each one separately. You also get the benefits of our hosted service, including data loss protection, item history, web access, built-in sync across all your devices, access to 1Password on all platforms, and free upgrades to every new version.
I hope everyone reading this will give our new 1Password membership a chance (we have a 30 day free trial and it’s easy to move over your existing data) but of course you’re free to continue using 1Password 4 for as long as you like.
Anyway, our general plan is clear: we need 1Password to have a consistent feature set and UX across every platform and we’re working our way there. I hesitate to give out any specific ETAs as it’s always hard to make the future reality match today’s plans – but we’re getting closer everyday. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I look forward to sharing more with you in the future :)
Take care,
++dave;
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Hello Brenty,
So to sum up the situation; there’s no active development on version 4 anymore, no active development on version 6 in order support local accounts and there’s no longer a way to purchase a version of 1Password that doesn’t require a monthly subscription.
Not good news at all.
Many thanks for the confirmation though.
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@reck: Sure! I'm just not sure I understand why that's bad news. 1Password.com memberships are available to everyone, but if you don't want that anyway you're not missing out on anything since 1Password 6 doesn't support local vaults. No version can get new features forever, but you've benefitted from years of 1Password 4 updates and can continue to do so — including the upcoming WebExtensions/NativeMessaging for Firefox and Chrome. 1Password 4 will continue to offer everything it did when you purchased your license, and all of the work we've put into it since then. I know I'll still be using it as long as there are still have some local vaults I need to access.
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Sure! I'm just not sure I understand why that's bad news
Brenty it’s bad news because for those of us who would rather buy the software directly rather than sign up for a subscription it means that this is no longer an option unless you’re happy to stick with an application that’s no longer being developed.
1Password.com memberships are available to everyone
I originally chose 1Password because I didn’t want a software subscription. I store my data on the dropbox server rather than the 1password server so I don’t see the need for a subscription and would rather purchase 1Password 6 directly the same way I did with version 4.
….you're not missing out on anything since 1Password 6 doesn't support local vaults
That’s actually the problem, it doesn’t support local vaults so I am missing out. I’m missing out on using the latest, supported version.
1Password 4 will continue to offer everything it did when you purchased your license
Yes but it’s not been updated with any new features or enhancements in a long time and won’t be getting any in the future. I’m sure you have an internal document that records all the feature requests customers have asked for over the years and where it needs improvements so you can see there’s lots of area’s where it needs work. The comparison has long been made against the mac version and how it’s lacking.
Hopefully you can see why this is very bad news for anyone who doesn’t want to pay a subscription. I had a similar situation with the Adobe suite until I moved to Affinity Photo.
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@reck: I get where you're coming from. I just don't see how you're actually missing out on something, other than because of a choice you're free to make. You haven't paid for 1Password 6. And while 1Password 4 probably isn't going to receive new features, it's still very much supported in every way that matters:
- It will receive critical updates.
- It will continue to work with major browsers on the latest version of Windows (and many older ones).
- We're here to help you if you need assistance with it.
All of that (and all of the work we've put into it already) is included in the purchase you already made. All software across all platforms since the beginning of software has outstanding feature/improvement requests which go unfulfilled. At some point we need to stop working on the old stuff to work on something new. Many of the things which were most requested for 1Password 4 which we did not implement simply aren't technically feasible there.
I'm sorry that I don't have better news for you now, but just because this isn't the "good news" you were hoping for doesn't make it "bad news". Bad news would be that 1Password 4 is broken, you can no longer use it, and you have to find an alternative today. That just isn't the case. We've put a lot of care and effort into making sure the app has a long life. Instead, you're just not receiving more new features on top of those you've already received. I don't think it's fair to expect that we'll continue to work on 1Password 4 infinitely for a finite license fee. That's never been the case with any licensed software. We're totally okay with 1Password.com succeeding or failing on its own merits, and unfortunately getting hung up on "doesn’t want to pay a subscription" means you'll miss out on a lot of great stuff out there, not just 1Password.com.
Keep in mind that you can get 1Password 6 today if you choose. The fact that it's included in a subscription is beside the point, as it's simply a matter of either being willing to pay the asking price for a product or service, or not. That's fine, and you can continue to use 1Password 4, which you've already pad for, for as long as you have something to run it on. Now, it may be that 1Password.com doesn't have everything you're looking for either, but you really have no way of knowing without trying it. Either way, we'll continue to improve 1Password 6 and 1Password.com, and if at some point you'd like to try a 1Password.com membership, you can do so for free for 30 days. And if you do, be sure to shoot us an email at support@1password.com as I'm sure there's something we can do to help. And even if you stick with 1Password 4, we're here for you just the same.
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The problem appears clear here. Agilebits, right from the top (Dave), aren't even considering the possibility that there may be a large user base out there that simply do not feel comfortable placing their most precious data...secure credentials...in the cloud. While I do respect the time and effort he took to write out the current "state of the union", he seems to think that the objection to 1password.com subscriptions has to do with either pricing or ease of setup/use. That couldn't be further from the truth. Some people simply want to limit exposure to their most confidential data.
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@btownguy: Not at all. We absolutely consider that. We're also not comfortable "placing [our] most precious data...secure credentials...in the cloud". I'm not sure why you'd think we'd be okay with that. Instead, 1Password.com only ever receives an encrypted blob, no credentials — literally — are ever sent to AgileBits or stored on our servers, not even when you login to our server. SRP makes that possible, and we wouldn't use 1Password.com ourselves otherwise. There's a lot more detail in our security white paper, but I'd like to offer a few points that summarize how 1Password secures our data:
- Your 1Password data is encrypted locally on your device before it is transmitted.
- The server receives only an encrypted blob.
- Your Master Password is never transmitted.
You might think I'm talking about 1Password.com specifically there, but that's the case no matter what 1Password setup you use — the only difference being that 1Password.com data is also encrypted using the 128-bit randomly generated Secret Key, which is also never transmitted to us. So there's an additional layer of security there as well.
Indeed, when you use 1Password, AgileBits never has access to your credentials or anything else you save in the app, regardless of the setup you choose. Even with 1Password.com, your data is encrypted on your device, so all the server ever ends up with is an encrypted blob. And since the Secret Key is created locally, your Master Password is only known by you, and neither is ever transmitted to us, only you have the means to decrypt the data.
Suffice to say, if someone gains access to our servers and dumps the full database (we've designed 1Password.com with this in mind), they simply don't have what they need to decrypt it, as each individual user alone has the keys to their data. So an attacker won't have that and can't get it from AgileBits, even if they get everything else. So while there's a lot more that goes into making all of this work smoothly, this is something that I think all of us can appreciate.
That's how we avoid exposure of customer data altogether, and our own as well. Nobody wants that. This is paramount, and I'm sorry if something I said or quoted out of context gave you a different impression. :blush:
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Before I write anything else please let me be clear that I’m not looking for a subscription. I actually moved to 1Password from Roboform due to them moving to a subscription model.
So previously…
- Latest version of 1Password could be purchased directly without the need for a subscription. As major new versions were released there was the option of paying to upgrade to the latest version.
- 1Password was updated with new features and functionality over time which was included in the purchase price.
Currently…..
- Latest version of 1Password no longer available to use without a monthly subscription fee.
- Only access without a subscription is to the old version that’s no longer updated.
So bearing in mind that a subscription is not something I’m looking for can you see why the situation is “not good” for those not looking to pay for a software subscription?
Version 4 is thankfully being updated with compatibility updates but how long is this going to last for brenty? What are the option for non-sub paying users once 1Password 4 has gone if there’s not another version that can be purchased directly? Sticking with an EoL product for the long term isn’t really the answer.
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@reck: You're right. That makes perfect sense. Thanks for clarifying that for me. While it doesn't get you what you want, I think we can at least understand each other.
Many people over the years have wanted a one-time license option that covered all of the 1Password apps. This isn't feasible (or very useful) without a centralized way of managing things, and that brings us to where we're at today, with 1Password.com memberships addressing the two biggest requests we've had over the last decade: seamless syncing and not having to manage multiple licenses (three, if you count simple and secure sharing, though that only applies to 1Password Families and Teams).
So, just as this offering is not all things to all 1Password users (for example, you and others who prefer the standalone version), that has always been the case. 1Password can't be all things to all people, so our goal has always been to make it the best password manager for the greatest number of people we can. Helping more people be secure without giving up convenience is why 1Password exists, and 1Password.com is a testament to that, especially in contrast with the standalone apps, which were all that was possible previously.
Trying to maintain two "tracks" simultaneously — standalone and subscription — holds 1Password back for everyone, as both then end up with half (or less) than our attention and effort. You have the option to try 1Password.com and choose not to. That's your call, but I don't think it would be fair of us to devote more resources to the old model when it benefits power users like you and I at the expense of everyone else, especially when we've already gotten what we paid for (and then some) with our existing licenses. In the past, the standalone option was the only option, and this made 1Password out of reach for many people, both financially and technically; they didn't have any other option: it was that or not use 1Password at all. By contrast, today you still have access to the standalone version you purchased, while others now have something more accessible opened up to them. And you're free to choose that path as well.
It feels crappy not only to be on the receiving end of this sort of calculus, but also to have to make it. But that's the responsibility we have to all of our customers, not just those who purchased the standalone app years ago and prefer to stick with that. I hope we'll be able to revisit this in the future, but we still have a lot of work to do to make 1Password.com and 1Password 6 better than they are even today, and that's not a responsibility we're going to shirk.
I know you are disappointed that 1Password 4 did not get everything you hoped it would someday after you bought it. We do sell our products on their actual merits rather than future possibilities, and hopefully most people make their buying decisions accordingly; but some of that's unavoidable as we're only human. Yet, how would you have felt if we'd been devoting resources to improving version 1 instead of 1Password 4 after you bought it, which would have meant 1Password 4 wouldn't have got as many new features and improvement? That's where we're at today with 1Password 4 and 1Password 6. And since we can't reasonably offer every option that people want ("freemium", for example), we're focused on the the one that does the most good.
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Thanks for the dialogue brenty.
It wasn't clear to me at the time when 1Password 6 was released that you weren't moving forward with a standalone product and were purely going to a monthly subscription model.
At the time I thought the plan was to initially concentrate on subscription customers in version 6 but that local accounts were going to be added at a future point and we just had to hold on for a bit. Obviously after more than a year of waiting and now this post i'm clear this wasn't the case.
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Thanks for the dialogue brenty.
@reck: Likewise, I appreciate you taking the time to talk about all of this, especially given that I can't offer you the answers you might have hoped. :blush:
It wasn't clear to me at the time when 1Password 6 was released that you weren't moving forward with a standalone product and were purely going to a monthly subscription model. At the time I thought the plan was to initially concentrate on subscription customers in version 6 but that local accounts were going to be added at a future point and we just had to hold on for a bit. Obviously after more than a year of waiting and now this post i'm clear this wasn't the case.
That's fair. I can't say that we're decided one way or the other, but certainly what needs our attention right now is the still-new 1Password 6 Windows app and 1Password.com; and saying "yes" to those ("YES" writ large, due to the amount of work involved) means saying "no" to a lot of other things — things you're aware of, like ongoing development involving 1Password 4, local vaults, and licensing; but also stuff that may never see the light of day, or that we may get to someday. It sucks to have to make choices like that, as it's never fun. And it sucks even more having to say "no" to people. Development projects don't have feelings, but you do. So, even if it's better for everyone in the long run (only time will tell), I'm really sorry that we haven't lived up to your expectations in this regard and have disappointed you with the choices we've made. :(
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