Bitwarden introduced a non-free dependency to their clients. The Bitwarden CTO tried to frame this as a bug but his explanation does not really make it any less concerning.

Perhaps it is time for alternative Bitwarden-compatible clients. An open source client that’s not based on Electron would be nice. Or move to something else entirely? Are there any other client-server open source password managers?

  • 4shtonButcherEnglish
    1163·
    2 months ago

    Can’t we ever have software that just keeps working? Password managers are like the new RSS readers.

    1. search around for a good one
    2. find a nice one and start using it
    3. they add stuff you didn’t want and slowly make it worse
    4. they’re bought up/ abandoned/ otherwise become unviable

    Back to 1)

      • jasep@lemmy.worldEnglish
        763·
        2 months ago

        The downside to Keepass is it is not self hosted, as in it’s designed to run locally per device. Yes, you can put the database file on a network and have multiple clients from different operating systems access the database, but you will end up with collisions and database issues. Ask me how I know.

        Running cross platform Keepass (and it’s various forks) is absolutely doable, but it is not as seemless as BitWarden. I’m running self hosted VaultWarden and I’m hoping to run it for a long time as it’s much easier than Keepass.

        • thayerw@lemmy.caEnglish
          211·
          2 months ago

          For what it’s worth, I only ever had sync issues when sharing a database between devices with transient connectivity. Once I added an always-on instance of Syncthing into the mix, collisions were a thing of the past.

          We’ve been using KeePass trouble-free for many years now, sharing a single database across more than 6 devices, with frequent use and modification.

        • PureTryOut@lemmy.kde.socialEnglish
          171·
          2 months ago

          Eh, I have used KeepassXC over multiple machines using NextCloud to sync it for years now and have never had any conflict.

          • somenonewho@feddit.orgEnglish
            41·
            2 months ago

            This. I have been running it the same way for some time now. Even if you change something on one machine and something else on another nextcloud will just happily inform you of the conflict and then you can open both databases and cherry pick. Never had corruption issues.

        • BraydEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          Yes, that’s a fair point

    • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
      54·
      2 months ago

      Sure, you’re welcome to keep using the version you like, or to write or maintain one on your own. Or pay someone for their labor to do it for you.

      But if you use something made out of someone’s good will, don’t rely on it for anything critical.

      • gdog05@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        2 months ago

        Money isn’t necessarily a factor. I’ve paid for many services that have made business or operating changes to the point of needing to separate and then there’s WinZip on the other side of things.