LastPass Premium - Review 2022 - Romriell Signatich

In the password manager field, as in other areas, juggling a free edition and a paid edition tin be tough for software designers. Make the free edition too limited and nobody will utilize information technology. But give users also much goodness for costless and you remove the incentive to pay. LastPass Premium is edging toward the latter. Information technology's still a powerful, characteristic-rich password manager, but so is the complimentary edition.

For many years, LastPass Premium cost $1 per month, $12 per year. That toll doubled this twelvemonth, to $24 per twelvemonth, so it now costs more than True Key and RoboForm, both of which run only under $xx. Still, LastPass costs less than many competitors. You pay $29.99 per year for Keeper and Sticky Password, while Dashlane and LogMeOnce Password Management Suite Ultimate go for $ten more than that.

Many features that started out equally premium-only have gradually migrated to the free edition. Emergency Admission was originally reserved for premium users, and for a while your gratis LastPass subscription could only sync beyond one type of device, desktop, smartphone, or tablet. At present the free edition syncs across all your devices, and includes Emergency Access. In addition, Shared Folders, formerly a premium characteristic, moved into the new LastPass Family unit.

LastPass Family is worthy of note. For $48 per year, twice the price of LastPass Premium, y'all go six licenses, so your whole family tin proceed their passwords safe. And, every bit noted, LastPass Family unit includes the Shared Folders feature. I'll review LastPass Family shortly. Keeper has similar family pricing, at $59.99 per year for five licenses. In addition, Keeper's family unit plan comes with 10GB of encrypted online storage, which ordinarily costs an additional $9.99 per year.

Shared Features

Equally you lot'd expect, LastPass Premium gives you all the features of the free LastPass. Delight read my review of that edition for full details. I'll briefly summarize here.

Yous tin can install LastPass on all your Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS devices and sync passwords and other information between them. Like Keeper, it even supports Linux and Windows Phone. It installs as a plug-in for Chrome, Border, Firefox, Net Explorer, and Opera. LastPass recently got a user interface update and some enhanced features. Withal, this update hasn't however made it to Internet Explorer and Opera. In addition, the visitor is rolling out these enhancements gradually for existing users, and so if you're already using it, your experience may non lucifer the version reviewed here.

You can import passwords from your browsers, or from 31 competing products, only the import list feels dated. There are only ten serious, current competitors on the listing. Four products on the list are defunct, including McAfee SafeKey, the precursor to True Central. Many of the rest are apps that come from individuals rather than companies, some oasis't seen an update in over 10 years, a few are Linux-only, and Norton Safe Web identified the website for one as malicious.

As expected, LastPass captures your credentials when y'all log in to a secure site and replays them when you revisit the site. A toolbar button bill of fare lets you lot select any saved site to both navigate there and log in. For nonstandard login pages, y'all tin enter your credentials and then have LastPass store data from all fields. When you're creating a new account, or updating a weak password, LastPass offers to generate a strong password for you.

For full access to features you must log in to the online vault. Here y'all tin can organize and edit saved entries, as well as creating personal data items, some of which you lot can use to fill web forms. Specifically, you can fill information for credit cards, banking company accounts, social security numbers, and addresses. Other data types such every bit passports and commuter's licenses hold information, only y'all can't autofill that data into a spider web course. Some of the data types, such equally SSH Fundamental and Database, seem like odd choices. Others, like Wi-Fi Password, include data fields beyond the knowledge of the average user.

LastPass Premium Vault

The new data types are specific to the updated interface. You lot can edit such items in Internet Explorer and Opera, only you tin only create old-mode Prophylactic Notes.

Emergency Admission lets yous identify 1 or more LastPass users (complimentary or premium) to receive your passwords in an emergency. When the recipient requests admission, you become a notification and are free to revoke admission during the waiting period. A like feature lets you share saved credentials with other users.

Two-factor hallmark ensures that nobody tin open your password vault using just the primary password. LastPass supports several authentication apps, including its own LastPass Authenticator. However, one of the listed apps no longer exists. For the rare person who doesn't utilize a smartphone, LastPass offers an hallmark technique that uses a wallet-sized paper grid.

The Security Challenge rates your overall password security and primary countersign security, and shows your rank among all LastPass users. You tin use it to identify weak and duplicate passwords, and update them with new, strong passwords. For nearly 80 popular sites, LastPass can automate the update process. The similar feature in Dashlane supports more than 500 sites. Keeper doesn't effort automated countersign modify, as it would violate the company's zero-cognition policy, simply it does let you lot update and salvage a new password with a unmarried click one time you're at the password-change page.

Secure sharing, countersign inheritance, an actionable countersign forcefulness report, and automatic password changing are uncommon features in free products. The free LastPass has all 4, and more. It's an Editors' Choice for complimentary password managers, despite some quirks.

Multifactor Enhancements

As noted, the free edition supports multifactor hallmark using free hallmark apps, as well as a low-tech grid-based hallmark system. With the premium edition, you can use a Yubikey for hallmark. Insert the device into a USB port, touch its button, and it generates a i-time password automatically.

Note that this is not the Universal 2-Factor hallmark promoted by the FIDO Alliance, though Yubikey does back up U2F. U2F is important because it'due south not limited to one supplier. More 30 companies are producing U2F devices. Dashlane and Keeper are among the few password managers that currently back up U2F.

You tin can associate upwards to five Yubikeys with your business relationship. Once you've done and so, when you log in, LastPass asks y'all to impact the YubiKey's glowing push button subsequently entering your master password. Not every device has a USB port, and so don't disable your existing 2-factor hallmark app.

LastPass Premium Yubikey

If you'd rather not spend money on a Yubikey, y'all tin convert any USB drive into an authenticator. Just install LastPass'southward Sesame utility on information technology and you're done. Plug it in to authenticate.

The Android and iOS editions of the gratis edition support authentication via fingerprint. With a premium account, you can use fingerprint authentication on a PC or Mac too.

Secure Storage

The editing window for all the personal information types that LastPass stores has an Add Attachment push. Premium users can add up to 1GB of attachments. Like passwords and other data, your attachments reside in the deject in encrypted form, and you tin admission them from any of your devices. This feature is present in the free edition as well, but information technology is limited to 50MB of storage.

SecurityWatch

Keeper Password Manager & Digital Vault emphasizes secure online storage, hence "Digital Vault" in the name. It offers 10GB of storage for an extra $9.99 per year. Those who just want password management don't accept to pay. Those who want more space can buy it, at $39.99 per year for 50GB. As noted, Keeper's family unit subscription gets you five licenses plus the 10GB of storage for $59.99 per year.

LastPass for Applications

LastPass for Applications, or LastApp for brusk, is its own dissever programme. After you lot download the 32-bit or 64-bit edition and install it, it appears every bit an icon in the notification expanse. Those using the gratis edition tin can try LastApp for 14 days. Note that the free edition handles app passwords in iOS and Android, where they're much more than useful than they are on a desktop reckoner.

You log into LastApp using your username and master password, simply every bit you log in to the browser extension. If you've enabled a second authentication factor, you'll have to provide that as well, naturally. I noticed that the menu associated with the tray icon includes most of the browser extension'due south functionality. Y'all tin launch saved websites, open up a limited version of the vault, and edit secure notes. All the new item types appear in the list of secure notes, only you tin can but create old-way notes, the kind that don't evidence up in the new browser extension. My advice is to use LastApp only for application passwords.

To save an application password, you select Add Application from the icon's menu and click Notice. The cursor becomes a crosshair, and the window under the cursor gets a red border. When yous click, LastPass captures the app'south total pathname. Viscous Password Premium uses a similar crosshair-cursor technique to get details about the app, while RoboForm tacks a toolbar onto the bottom border of the login window.

LastPass Premium for Applications

Previously, LastPass used what it called Training mode to capture the login credentials every bit yous entered them. Now it works more similar Keeper'south application password system. You click Next and enter the username and password, then click OK to save the data. Where Keeper gain to fill up the credentials you lot but entered, LastPass makes yous click the icon and cull Fill Application. At this point the crosshair cursor appears again. Click the app with information technology to fill your credentials. You tin also click Applications in the menu and select the desired app to launch it, but I found that it doesn't automatically fill credentials.

Long-time LastPass users volition discover that LastApp looks very familiar. Checking my files, it looks like its appearance hasn't changed in at to the lowest degree 5 years. This is a little jarring juxtaposed with the fresh look of the new browser extensions. My LastPass contact says the company focuses strongly on the browser extensions, noting that "filling passwords in desktop applications is niche right now." I concord, only if you need this power, LastPass has information technology.

Doesn't Add Enough Value

Since my last review, LastPass Premium has doubled in price while losing the Shared Folders feature, which moved over to LastPass Family. Information technology offers multifactor authentication using Yubikeys, something few people who aren't security professionals possess. The company itself admits that filling application passwords isn't their focus. In improver to those features, upgrading to LastPass Premium gives you an advert-gratis feel and priority in the support queue. However, in all my years of using LastPass I can't remember ever needing support. The free edition of LastPass is then feature-rich that I can't really see paying for it. LastPass Premium is a very good production, undercut on value by its own free edition, which remains an Editors' Choice.

Ease of use is of utmost importance in a password managing director; you don't want to confuse users or badger them with unnecessary complexity. With its attractive interface, smooth operation, and advanced features, Dashlane is an Editors' Choice for commercial password manager. Keeper Password Manager & Digital Vault, some other top pick, also very easy to apply, offers a consequent user interface across every browser and operating system imaginable. It's getting crowded at the top; LogMeOnce Password Management Suite Ultimate and Sticky Countersign Premium also concur the Editors' Option designation. When I side by side review those 2, I'll be taking a hard wait at complexity and at ease of apply.