46

I have some passwords that are long, complicated and hard to remember.

I would like to use a password-manager application to save all of my passwords instead of saving them using a text editor.

What is the best password manager?

4
  • Appears to be a dupicate ,please flag for closure
    – Tachyons
    Jun 13, 2012 at 11:48
  • I know . But I am from mobile ,I hope admin will delete it ASAP
    – Tachyons
    Jun 14, 2012 at 0:07
  • Why are there three answers recommending the same piece of software?
    – Burhan Ali
    May 18, 2015 at 15:29
  • Anyone landing here, like I did, in October 2022, you can investigate bitwarden as a potential option to those mentioned below. Oct 3, 2022 at 8:25

13 Answers 13

29

KeePassX install

KeePassX is a free/open-source password manager or safe which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key-disk. So you only have to remember one single master password or insert the key-disk to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the algorithms AES or Twofish.

Screenshot

3
  • Yes is very good, is cross platform (1.18 Version)
    – Vassilis
    Mar 18, 2011 at 12:55
  • I combine my keepass password file with dropbox to have all my passwords there on my work computer, home computer, android phone... Its super convenient.
    – Zoe
    Mar 18, 2011 at 14:59
  • The newer version, KeePass, works great with Mono. Setup info here: keepass.info/help/v2/setup.html Mar 18, 2011 at 19:42
16

I suggest you the free, cross-platform KeePassXC, a fork of KeePassX. I'm using its DB on my Android phone too (KeePassDroid, combined with Dropbox).

KeePassXC themes more screenshots

KeePassXC is a modern, secure, and open-source password manager that stores and manages your most sensitive information.

You can run KeePassXC on Windows, macOS, and Linux systems. KeePassXC is for people with extremely high demands of secure personal data management. It saves many different types of information, such as usernames, passwords, URLs, attachments, and notes in an offline, encrypted file that can be stored in any location, including private and public cloud solutions.

For easy identification and management, user-defined titles and icons can be specified for entries. In addition, entries are sorted in customizable groups. An integrated search function allows you to use advanced patterns to easily find any entry in your database. A customizable, fast, and easy-to-use password generator utility allows you to create passwords with any combination of characters or easy to remember passphrases. You can install it from the Ubuntu software center:

KeePassXC install

snap package on all supported OSes or Linux distros:

snap install keepassxc

apt on Ubuntu/Debian/deb based:

apt -y install keepassxc

yum/dnf on RHEL/CentOS/Fedora/other EL/other RPM based:

yum -y install keepassxc

or

dnf -y install keepassxc

choco on Windows:

choco -y install keepassxc

brew on Mac:

brew -y install keepassxc

KeePassX is a free/open-source password manager or safe which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key-disk. So you only have to remember one single master password or insert the key-disk to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the algorithms AES or Twofish.

Screenshot

You can find the features here, and more screenshots here.

7
14

Seahorse is an application that is installed in Ubuntu by default and manages passwords for various applications.

enter image description here

0
9

I really like LastPass It's not open source, but is very well supported across platforms, browsers and devices. They recently acquired XMarks (great cross platform/cross browser bookmark sync tool). LastPass is incredibly secure, offers 2nd pass authentication and is very reliable.

2
  • This has to be upvoted. LastPass is great cause you can get to it from anywhere on the internet. It just got the browser extension of the week from MaxPC as well (maximumpc.com/article/columns/browser_extension_week_lastpass).
    – rifferte
    Mar 18, 2011 at 14:35
  • I use XMarks, and I've been hooked on this app for years. I remember when LastPass acquired it, but I haven't gone back to check LastPass out. Paying for password management seems wrong, but if it's secure and robust, maybe it's a good option. Apr 11, 2017 at 13:52
6

KeePassX is another option:

KeePassX is an application for people with extremly high demands on secure personal data management. It has a light interface, is cross platform and published under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

KeePassX saves many different information e.g. user names, passwords, urls, attachments and comments in one single database. For a better management user-defined titles and icons can be specified for each single entry. Furthermore the entries are sorted in groups, which are customizable as well. The integrated search function allows to search in a single group or the complete database. KeePassX offers a little utility for secure password generation. The password generator is very customizable, fast and easy to use. Especially someone who generates passwords frequently will appreciate this feature.

enter image description here

The program is available in the Software Center but I can't figure out how to make a nice install button which works :)

KeepassX is also available for Windows and MacOS.

4
  • Keepass is awesome :)
    – Tachyons
    Jun 13, 2012 at 11:05
  • BTW you can use George Edison's script for adding software center button
    – Tachyons
    Jun 13, 2012 at 11:12
  • Isn't this the same software that the mentionated in the first two answers?
    – Lucio
    Jun 5, 2013 at 23:16
  • 1
    @Lucio: Yes it is the same. I think 2 similar questions were merged at some point - you'll notice that half of the answers here was made on 18 Mar 2011 and another on 13 Jun 2012.
    – Sergey
    Jun 7, 2013 at 20:38
4

You can use Figaro's Password Manager 2

Install via the software center

Figaro's Password Manager 2 (FPM2) is a program that allows you to securely store the passwords. Passwords are encrypted with the AES-256 algorithm.

If the password is for a web site, FPM2 can keep track of the URLs of your login screens and can automatically launch your browser. In this capacity, FPM2 acts as a kind of bookmark manager. You can teach FPM2 to launch other applications, and optionally pass hostnames, usernames or passwords to the command line.

FPM2 also has a password generator that can choose passwords for you. It allows you to determine how long the password should be, and what types of characters (lower case, upper case, numbers and symbols) should be used. You can even have it avoid ambiguous characters such as a capital O or the number zero.

Source: http://linuxpoison.blogspot.com/2012/02/ui-based-password-manager-figaros.html

3

I use password cards. There is an open source desktop version being developed called Randy. Until then you can use passwordcard.org

1
  • This is a really cool idea. EFF recommends using dice to generate secure passphrases (eff.org/dice), and also that you write this down. I think it's a common misconception that writing down passwords/phrases is insecure. The only real problem with cards is that it's not automated, and you have to pull it out all the time to type your password (unless you use Firefox master password and remember them the first time or use a password manager in conjunction with cards). Nice tip. Apr 11, 2017 at 13:57
3

KeePass2 run_software_center

While KeePassX is very easy to install and manage, I personally prefer KeePass2. While a bit harder to customize and having a tendency to act up on Unity, it offers far better browser integration IMHO.

With KeePass, you'll never ever have to enter a password again on any website. You will not even have to break your fingers with some strange keyboard shortcut. KeePass recognizes the website you're on and submits your login data fully automatical, leaving you only with one mouse click on 'login' to do. It's very handy and convienient.

A tutorial about how-to install and configure it to work with Chrome/Chromium can be found here.

1

I like using Password Dragon, a password-manager written by the author of "The Geek Stuff" blog. It is cross-platform, Java-based, and works with Windows, Linux, and OS X.

enter image description here

0

October-1-2015: (for Ubuntu all versions)

Enpass 5.0 RC was released recently (64bit only for Linux) with most important feature: browser extensions for both Firefox and Chrome on Linux.

Installation:

1.Go to official website enpass.io. Select Enpass for Linux.You need to enter your email,then link will be sent to your email.

2.After downloading, run the following commands:

cd  ~/Downloads
chmod +x EnpassInstaller
sudo apt-get install libxss1
./EnpassInstaller

Method 2:

To install Enpass, add new repository to /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo su
echo "deb http://repo.sinew.in/ stable main" > \
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/enpass.list
wget -O - http://repo.sinew.in/keys/enpass-linux.key | apt-key add -
apt-get update
apt-get install enpass
1
  • Instead of adding dates, review your answer and add version numbers for Ubuntu you've tested this on...
    – Fabby
    Oct 1, 2015 at 20:57
0

Just for full measure, it should be noted that browsers on Ubuntu support saving passwords and syncing them:

  • Firefox saves passwords, and you can share them with other Firefox installations on other devices (Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Firefox OS) using Firefox Accounts/Firefox Sync. Everything is encrypted client-side, which means Mozilla can't know your passwords, but it also means that if you forget your Firefox Accounts password and lose access to all your devices, you could lose all your passwords. There used to be an option to use your own server to store your uploaded data, but I haven't tried it and I don't know if it's supported any more. Firefox Accounts does not support two-factor authentication.

  • Chrome also allows you to sync passwords across devices. Google stores your passwords in the cloud, but not in a zero-knowledge way (AFAIK). If you forget your Google password, then you need to use the usual methods to recover your Google account. Google supports two-factor authentication with your mobile phone number.

  • Chromium works the same way as Chrome.

  • Opera lets you sync passwords as well, presumably it stores them in Opera servers like Chrome does, (no two-factor authentication and not zero-knowledge, AFAICT).
  • GNOME Web (or Epiphany) stores saved passwords in the Passwords and Encryption Keys application (Seahorse), I don't know if there's a built-in way to sync this data.

TLDR:

Firefox:    sync,   zero-knowledge,     no 2FA
Chrome/ium: sync,   not zero-knowledge, 2FA with phone number
Opera:      sync,   not zero-knowledge, no 2FA
Epiphany:   no sync

All these browsers have ways of looking at your list of saved passwords, but they don't match all the features of most password managers, as you can only store passwords meant for websites, and not passwords in general. Some of the browsers can import saved passwords from other browsers, and many password managers can import saved passwords from other browsers.

1
  • FF has a master password option, as well, so this should be noted here with the browser options. Apr 11, 2017 at 13:59
0

Visionary Password Manager

Quoting the project page

Conventional password managers have a few flaws. They work by generating passwords, encrypting them with a master password, and then storing or syncing the encrypted passwords somewhere.

There are a few problems with this approach:

  • The encrypted data can be lost, thereby locking the user out of all of their accounts.
  • The encrypted data can be stolen. If the user was using a weak master password, all of their accounts can be compromised.
  • The data can only be synced to a limited number of devices.

Visionary Password Manager improves on these shortcomings considerably:

  • Your passwords are generated on-the-fly based on a pure algorithm. This means that the only thing that would make you lose your data is you forgetting your master password.
  • Nothing is stored so there's nothing to steal.
  • There are thousands of iterations of Scrypt, making brute-forcing infeasible.
  • No need to sync data, as there's nothing to sync! You can use this script or our API (coming soon) from anywhere in the world, and from any device, to generate your passwords.
0

KeepassXC

Keepass has already been recommended here, but not XC. KeepassXC is written more with Linux in mind. It is itself a successor/community version of KeepassX, itself with a similar goal. All 3 are cross-platform today, but Keepass is probably best for Windows users; Ubuntu users may require mono to run it. For Ubuntu, KeepassXC would be my recommendation.

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