Comment on Should I use a "proper" password manager instead of Firefox?

ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

They’ve gotten a lot better. In the past, decrypting browser passwords was basically trivial. It still is by default: make sure you set a master password at a minimum. The consensus is that they’re as secure as a proper password manager, but almost everyone agrees that it’s better than nothing / not using one.

They’re still relatively low hanging fruit for infostealer malwares and are compromised at significantly higher rates than other managers. Local access is also a problem in most cases. Autofill features have been exploited a lot too, though that can also effect password manager plugins (less so when they require manual interaction). Not using plugins for other managers may also pose a risk, like by moving credentials in the world-readable clipboard instead of a secure link that a plugin would use.

You should probably use a standalone manager but it’s not the end of the world. Just do some simple best-practices: maybe omit your primary auth email and bank creds, use 2fa/opt (don’t store with your passwords) and keep recovery credentials safe and separate.

When it cones to security, you can be endlessly paranoid… Personally I have separate keepass vaults to limit damage by compartmentalized; they autolock after a short time and I keep OTP and recovery credentials in parallel vaults with different passwords never opened on the same machine. I’ve had my devices compromised many times in the past but besides temporarily losing access to an autologin minecraft account and a shared Netflix password, I’ve never lost my vaults or had anything in them compromised so I must be doing something right. The same couldn’t be said when I used a browser password manager 20+ years ago and got a family creditcard stolen by downloading a runescape dragon scimitar cursor…

People who use things like qubes OS can benefit by keeping their managers in separate isolated environments from their applications and passing cress between them. Some people also use dedicated & airgapped devices for credential management.

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