Time to move away from 1Password?

tiantai

I've been using 1Password for years and have only had occassional issues. Recently I read this article ( https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/13/1password_not_killing_onprem_storage/ ) which is suggesting that 1Password is moving away from local private vaults to vaults in the Cloud via subscription.

I'm very wary on purchasing a subscription-based software. And furthermore, wary of having to pay a monthly subscription fee. My university offers LastPass for free to all its members but I never used it because I much preferred having my vault stored locally and synced.

If Agilebits is going to sunset or stop developing the necessary technology to continue supporting local private vaults, it looks like I'll have to find some alternative.

(I really despite paying a subscription fee. I much rather pay a one time fee or pay again
when I need to buy an upgrade. Subscription fee is just one more thing to continually drain one's revenue stream. Ugh.)

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1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided

fourwheelcycle

Although I use the licensed versions of 1P for Mac and Windows and sync them locally so my info never leaves my home, I have tried 1P.com and it is an excellent system.

1P.com's security measures are as good or better than any other cloud-based password manager and I have great confidence in them. Setting up a DIY local syncing system requires a thorough awareness of the steps required to maintain effective syncing and also an awareness of the seemingly minor changes in syncing procedures that can totally screw up a home-brew system.

I definitely agree with AgileBits that their 1P.com product is best for 99.9% of all users. My only concern with the ultimate security of any cloud-based system is human error. Dropbox once accidentally left its servers wide open on a weekend afternoon, with no password required to access anyone's account. Just this week Verizon confirmed that personal data for 6 million customers was leaked online due to a misconfigured security setting on a cloud server caused by human error.

As each year goes by with no hacked or accidental data leak from 1P.com, and as I encounter more problem points in my own home-brew setup, I give more thought to switching to the 1P.com version of 1Password. I think AgilBits offers the best password manager available, at a very competitive price for either the licensed or subscription versions.

tiantai

Clearly I haven't had problems maintaining my own sync. I've used 1Password this way for over 7 years now and between 7 devices.

I don't like the subscription model. I don't mind having the encrypted database be in the cloud (which it already is in my case). I just don't want a subscription model for myself.

Ben

Hi folks,

Please check out this blog post for our response:

AgileBits Blog | Why We Love 1Password Memberships

Customers have been asking us for a long time to make syncing and sharing easier. Based on those demands we created 1Password.com accounts. The only way to provide this service is as a subscription. We provide the sync service as well as the apps as part of this subscription. The ability to easily share passwords and other important data among family and team members has been immensely popular with our 1Password.com subscription customers.

Thanks for the kind words, @fourwheelcycle!

Ben

[Deleted User]

Well, my 2 cents. I do not have anything but my computer. No added devices to sync. To pay for a subscription plan is just throwing money down the drain. Sorry.

dbutenhof

For another point of view ... I'm a long time 1Password user. (Pretty much since I switched from my trusty but limited Palm Treo to jump on the iPhone bandwagon.) I've had arguments with Mac users who say that with iCloud Keychain, 1Password is no longer of any use. The fact is, Keychain is extremely basic, arguably duplicating at best 10% of 1Password, with a bad UI, and (especially on iOS) extremely awkward to browse or search.

But. iCloud Keychain is free. Some argue that the 1Password subscription plan is an attempt to maintain revenue despite a substantial user base decline to Keychain. I suspect there's a grain of truth in that, but most likely any actual defectors are those who don't care much about password security, metadata accessibility, or flexibility.

However I think you're creating a new category of defector: those who simply aren't willing to consider paying over $35 every year just to continue using 1Password. This category seems very likely to include me.

For now, I'm going to stick with my purchased 1Password license, and see what happens. If you actually manage to pump out enough major features every year to justify a "perpetual yearly $35 upgrade fee" then I might go for it. But it'll also depend on other aspects of your subscription plan.

For example, it sounds like you're (so far) retaining the ability to sync with iCloud or Dropbox, and that's critical. I will not commit money to put "all my eggs" into a cloud privately managed by a single small company. I've had other developers try to do this to me, and it's forced me to stop upgrading, or even stop using, products I really liked. This would apparently preclude using features like multiple vaults or other sharing options that you only support through your own AWS cloud. That's OK as I've never felt any need to use them... but this does of course reduce the value of your subscription fee; and if I decide they'd be useful, being forced to avoid them would become painful.

Basically, you've got a really tough sell, and I'm more than a bit upset that you're likely to be forcing me to drop another excellent product in favor of something less effective or more awkward to use.

Of course that is (literally) your business. I'm not sure whether to wish you well, because I don't much like the impact on me. I wish there was a better way. I get it, you need revenue to support your business and your own cloud service. But of course that's exactly the point: that private cloud service is the one part of the product I don't want. A private lock-in cloud has no value to me; in fact, it has negative value to me.

I'm sad; but right now I'm watching to see what happens and hoping I won't have to give up on 1Password.

prime

@dbutenhof iCloud Keychain is free, but 100% useless on anything that isn't an Apple product. You can't even download the passwords from anywhere (as far as I know) if you switched to another OS. iCloud Keychain It's extremely basic, doesn't do nearly as much as 1Password.

@ben posted a link about this (please read it, it's 2 posts above yours) and this whole thing (IMO) has been blown way out of proportion. @brenty posted in another thread how the subscription has been out for a year an a 1/2 and no one has said anything untill now.

AGAlumB

Well, my 2 cents. I do not have anything but my computer. No added devices to sync. To pay for a subscription plan is just throwing money down the drain. Sorry.

@Steve_H: If you've already got a license for the only version you need, yeah I don't think anyone is suggesting that you pay for something else. Just be sure to backup your data, as you won't have a way to recover your data otherwise.

AGAlumB

@dbutenhof: We were actually doing just fine without 1Password.com. It exists because it's the only way we can bring a lot of great things that people have been asking us for for years into being.

While 1Password.com isn't a "new version" in the sense of what we're used it, it's similar in a few key ways that seem like they'd matter to you: It includes new features and capabilities that you can get if you pay for it, but you don't have to make the change if you're happy with the way you're using 1Password now, and you don't lose anything that way either.

You're right that it's totally up to us to make 1Password.com memberships compelling for people to pay for them, whether they're existing users or new ones. I can watch YouTube for free, but poor quality, ads, and generally terrible comments really make me appreciate Netflix, so I'm happy to pay for that. Yet, even then, I can live without Netflix. And technically I could live without 1Password too, but the time, effort, and anxiety it saves me are well worth the cost of the multiple licenses I've paid for over the years, and the membership I pay for now, are well worth it. The alternative is paying to use something I don't particularly like, or getting something for free that is more hassle for me (seriously, managing and exporting with Keychain is not fun). But ultimately that's going to be a different calculation for each of us, depending on what we value.

[Deleted User]

Ah Brenty. I think you might have let the cat out of the bag with your final sentence. I just hope that you will give us plenty of time to do the calculation. :-)

AGAlumB

@Steve_H: 1Password.com was publicly unveiled in November 2015. It's confusing to me that this is all coming up a year and a half later. If we'd made changes to how 1Password worked for existing users, we would have had this discussion a long time ago. ;)

[Deleted User]

Brenty, you are correct in the unveiling. I think that the problem is not with Agilebits, but with the fact that more and more companies , for whatever reason, are going to the subscription basis and not giving users a choice. They are also packaging additional software into the subscription plan that the users may or may not want. I can think of one company that has done this.

prime

@Steve_H

They are also packaging additional software into the subscription plan that the users may or may not want.

Speak for yourself. I love the features in the subscription, they are awesome. If my mom calls me and forgot her master password, I can help her reset it. So much easier sharing vaults, and so much easier for a non-techy person to set up. I've said this before, I dead thay my father-in-law got a new devise and didn't know how to do the whole set up again. He's almost 70 and can do this new set up easily.

And AgileBits is give you a choice.

AGAlumB

@Steve_H: That's an interesting point that I don't think I've seen made before. We don't often hear users ask for fewer features, but we often push back against adding additional complexity and love getting feedback from customers based on how they use (or would like to use) 1Password. Cheers! :)

[Deleted User]

Prime, I am over 70 (I hate to admit it) and have totally different needs than you. So, that being said, you should have a choice of what works best in your particular situation. But, then so should I.

AGAlumB

Sounds good. If you want to stick with the 1Password setup you already have, more power to you. It won't cost you a thing. But I'm glad that we have 1Password.com memberships now for those who want them. :)

[Deleted User]

Agree totally. :-)

prime

@Steve_H that was my point to begin with. You may not need them, but others do. I had a goofy set up and just had fun, but I got to the point that I just wanted it to work. I've said this many times on here, I lost trust in Dropbox but needed them for the set up I had. I have Mac, Windows, Linux, and iOS, so the subscription is a life saver. Dropbox said they "fixed" it, but I can't trust them anymore.

My father in law can rebuild a car from the ground up, but tech stuff, it takes a while. He has far less patience than me, and when you're in a pinch (needing passwords asap for a new device), this is awesome. He's excited about the new Travel Mode, because my inlaws are retired and travel a lot. When I told him about this, I wasn't even done talking, and he was already on the site reading about it.

My mom, she's not good at all with technology, but she's doing good with this. I'm the family "IT" guy and always helping people. I don't mind it, but at times I am beat and I just don't want to do it. Twice already my mom locked herself out of 1Password and the 1st time we lost everything because it was the old set up. Thankfully she didn't have much yet, and we able to get everything reset (took hours). The 2nd time, because of the subscription, we were able to save her account and passwords. Good thing, because she's using it a lot more.

I've been on these forums for over 2 years, going on 3, and I've seen a lot of issues. I feeling AgileBits looked at the issues also and listened to people. In the end we see the subscription, and I think it's great. It's awesome they fixed most issues that customers had with the subscription.

I can easy go to an open source/free one. I can figure it out, but it will not be as polished and user friendly. I love the stand-alone, and argued and spoke against the subscription for months. I did a lot of research (Dropbox ticking me off), looked at my options, looked at how it can benefit not just me, but my family.

MrC

@prime - I think you are being a bit argumentative with poor ol' @Steve_H (Speak for yourself and You may not need them, but others do.). He stated up front that the users may or may not want. some features. He, by definition, is one of those two camps and you are in another. He isn't speaking for you or others - he's speaking for himself. He's entitled to post his position as a member of one camp, and his position is perfectly reasonable and entirely his choice.

prime

@MrC I probably was and I do apologize @Steve_H. I did say that was my point to begin with in my next post. I rather have more options to pick from, than just a few. If I don't need an option that was packed into a subscription, I just won't use it, but I know others probability will need it.

AgileBits has more options than most out there, again my point :)

AGAlumB

I'm just happy any time someone gets enjoyment out of using 1Password, and I know I speak for all of us here at AgileBits when I say that. :)

prime

@brenty this is my number 1 app and I use it daily. I'm glad Dave posted that blog, because who knows, I may want to go back to the stand-alone. It's nice to know I can if I want (probably won't, my wife might kill me for changing stuff again :lol: )

[Deleted User]

prime and MrC and brenty. We all agree that Agilebits and 1Password is the best. (I also also really like Knox)

prime

@Steve_H that is the truth!

[Deleted User]

People are concerned because we have no assurances from AgileBits that the standalone licenses will continue to be sold and that updates will be available to standalone 1Password license holders. If a new version of macOS renders my copy of 1Password non-functional, and there's no new standalone version available, that's a big problem.

Since I'm hosting multiple servers and services locally for myself and a business client, (web, email, FTP, VPN, cloud storage, etc.) on a Cox Business Internet connection, I don't really need a simplified version of password syncing,

Ben

Hi @Fred_M,

Thanks for writing in. Please see this post:

AgileBits Blog | Why We Love 1Password Memberships

I don't really need a simplified version of password syncing,

I think you may have misunderstood what 1Password.com gives you. It isn't "just" password syncing. Certainly syncing is a critical part of it, but it is much more than that:

What are the benefits of a 1Password membership?

In any event, I think the blog post I mentioned will help. :)

Ben

[Deleted User]

Hello @Ben,

Thank you for your reply. I had read the posts you mentioned prior to writing (I don't like to enter into conversations uninformed) and I was aware of the other new features offered. Some duplicate capabilities that I already have and others are not applicable to my use case.

While I understand that AgileBits has transitioned to a new business model, it's not one that I'm comfortable with and in some cases, it can't work for me. For example, I've got a system that on my local network with no Internet access of any kind (firewalled off to prevent access out of the local, non-routable network IP space). It will never be able to sync with passwords not stored locally, but I need it to have access to my passwords for servers, firewalls, managed switch, and NAS boxes, as well as software license keys, physical safe combination, etc.

I know that many others are happy with your subscription service and I wish AgileBits the greatest success going forward. I am just sorry that AgileBits elected to go away from a model where users were given the features of each model and had a choice:

-- Fred

AGAlumB

@Fred_M: Frankly we were sad about that too. Otherwise we would have done things very differently for the year during which we marketed standalone licenses and 1Password.com memberships side by side in both the apps and website, as you've illustrated above. But this pales in comparison to the sadness caused by doing just that. We received thousands of messages (which we have only recently fully caught up with, and this wouldn't have been possible without this change) from customers who bought licenses and then were confused, frustrated, and/or furious when they found they couldn't use 1Password seamlessly across all of their devices without buying something else and — in most cases — setting 3rd party sync for each. It was untenable. So we've made the best option for most people the default, and stopped marketing the one that people were paying for without actually wanting that. While you clearly have a setup that you're happy with, I hope you'll appreciate that you don't need to buy a new license to continue with that, so us not marketing them doesn't affect your situation; but it does mean that most people, who just want things to work, end up with the best solution. And we're always here to help anyone with 1Password if needed. Cheers! :)