- On macOS, half the time auto fill doesn't work. Saving a password is very inconsistent.
- When you auto generate a password, the least resistance UI workflow is to first save and fill it - but then when you create the account it is saved again, making it a duplicate.
- The "move to trash" button is obscurely hidden somehow (used to be much better).
- And don't get me started on the Windows client - on my fast gaming PC it takes forever just to unlock the vault.
I've cancelled my subscription and won't renew once it runs out.
Highly recommend trying BitWarden! I'm a paying user of it myself. It also has export of data and full self-hosted options as well. The browser plugins work amazingly well. The phone app is...i would say 75-80%. I've had trouble sometimes getting it to popup the "auto-fill" but otherwise it works very slick (supporting biometric unlock too).
No the vault is not able to be a local vault but you can self host your vault on your own server and it uses secure remote password for logging in just like 1password.
It also has end to end encryption for the vault.
The only way for your vault to get compromised is through a server compromise and brute forcing your password, due to how SRP works, even if DNS was taken over and someone intercepted your login request it’s not possible to derive anything about your password and the client would detect that the remote doesn’t actually have the vault.
Even if they man in the middled the login they can’t learn about your password or get access to your encrypted vault.
Does Bitwarden's desktop application use Electron?
Edit:
Okay, it sounds like from the comments, it does use Electron. Then my followup question is, if people are upset with 1Password moving in this direction, then Bitwarden would not be a good alternative, no?
Yes, from their Github page "The Bitwarden desktop app is written using Electron and Angular. The application installs on Windows, macOS, and Linux distributions."
It does, but I have yet to need it. I use the browser plugin for everything. If a desktop app needs a password, I just open the FF plugin and copy the password myself haha.
It is, but on the Mac, one of the big selling points of 1Password was a nice, native UI. If that feature is gone, why use it over an open-source, self-hostable alternative?
I was paying extra ($36/y vs $10/y) for the native app 1Password provided. Why would I keep paying more now that AgileBits decided not to offer the feature I wanted?
FWIW, my experience has been that Bitwarden's autofill is pretty bad compared to other password managers (I recently migrated from Lastpass, and used 1password in the past). I end up having to manually copy and paste a lot of passwords because the browser extension can't find the right fields.
Interesting, I've never had that issue on the browser. I HAVE noticed that if you open the plugin before the page finishes loading, it will error trying to fill the fields. In those cases I tend to just close the plugin and reopen it and it seems to work fine for me.
No idea if your experience has been different, just a thought!
I had problem with lastpass' overly aggresive autofill and form detection system that seriously slow down any page that has a lot of input fields. I had a page with 500 input fields that I used semi-regularly at work to bulk update some configuration, and the slow down was so bad the page will be unresponsive for >5 minutes. It was the last straw that made me migrate bitwarden.
If anyone has the issue with Windows and it taking forever try uninstalling, wiping all your user data in AppData and then reinstalling. Worked for me at least after being extremely frustrated. I think they are converting the windows version to the same platform.
Not saying it doesn't frustrate me with other things. I haven't used the Mac client in a while but I remember it being really good though
My experience is the opposite for all of these points. I have no issues with auto-fill, I haven’t run into issues with duplicates for a while, unlocking doesn’t take forever anywhere. I don’t know about the move to trash button, it could be moved but I don’t recall it being that hard to get to.
It’s really interesting to hear these differences in experience for the same product. I wonder why it’s happening? Gotta be something going on there.
This is genuinely surprising to me. I've used 1Password for years across every browser on Android, iOS, Mac OS, and Windows, and the issues with autofill and saving on websites are consistent. You must be using it for only a few sites, only for apps — something.
Like I commented the other day, they are losing me as a customer because of that - and because of "improving" the vault format so that it no longer syncs with iOS via iCloud.
This is going to cause all sorts of grief when we are forced to upgrade the iOS app to align with 8 and lose the ability to sync via that. I wouldn't mind paying for a Family license if I didn't have to use their sync service - I just don't trust it (marketing-wise, reliability-wise and security-wise, since it's designed purely as a retention factor) and would vastly prefer sticking to pure iCloud syncing.
Do you have a link to read more about the loss of iCloud sync?
If that's accurate, goodbye 1password. I was irked (but understood) the move into a subscription model, but this step would make no sense from a personal sec-ops perspective. While I generally am not a fan of iCloud (and how it forces certain things to sync onto devices), I really do NOT want yet another "cloud" to store incredibly sensitive info like password vaults.
(Curmudgeon engaged) These company communications are just a few ironic emojis away from fitting in with Facebook MLM spam and don't instill much confidence.
I don't think they care - they are chasing the enterprise market who doesn't care how well the desktop client works as long as it integrates with their enterprise SSO solution and gives them the audit logs they need.
My company uses 1Password, and their license includes a free 1Password family license for employees.
On the other hand, my company recommends using their standalone license, which does not exist anymore. Online password managers is a no-no at this place. Perhaps self-hosted 1Password will be interesting when it arrives.
The most disturbing part about this is that their support team has been misleading people on Twitter all morning, not truthfully answering straightforward questions about whether the app is Electron:
I'm curious to see if they have finally killed off standalone.
I've been a 1Password user for years but have staunchly resisted going to their subscription model because I want my data local. It's infuriating that 1Password has steadily downplayed standalone versions to the point where it's almost impossible to find.
"standalone" as it was used in the text you quoted means "supports local vaults" (i.e., can be used without paying for a subscription). Announcement discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28145247
It has been painfully admitted that they are moving to Electron. Mentioning 'It's using Rust' doesn't make it any faster or efficient since at the end of the day, it is going to be slower regardless. This tweet by a user called _cprecioso is priceless of the reaction on 1Password's move to Electron. [0]
Have you ever used an electron app? Typically slow and laggy. Worse, your workflow is typically slower since the user don’t get any the advantages of native integration.
You've been spamming this comment repeatedly on this thread. I don't think this is particularly deal breaking or concerning at all. Electron apps actually have no issues spawning new windows for settings and such. Here it just seems like a different design design and not a particularly egregious one. I'm really not sure what's so earth shatteringly awful about this. If you show me something that shows the app actively losing functionality because of this change I will agree that this was a bad move
Electron is the explanation and it takes up CPU, RAM and Disk Space. If you are running other Electron apps, 1Password is now going to be even more slower.
> and in comparison to what?
In comparison to 1Password 7 which that is fully native vs the upcoming 1Password 8 which is sitting inside an entire browser.
But even through basic inspection, almost all Electron apps are always more than 120MB of disk space (After unzipping) and when run it is copied to RAM which is at least another 120MB.
Multiply that with the number of Electron apps you are currently running and you can see that it doesn't scale on the limited resources of your own machine. Especially if the user is primarily using Chrome with tons of tabs open.
I agree that moving to Electron is not a guarantee that an application will be slower than it is before. Unfortunately, though, I tried it out and 1Password 8 is laggy — noticeably, awkwardly laggy — compared to 1Password 7. I wrote up my experience in the other thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28147305
I kind of don't understand why customer support would answer customer questions that way — Oh my, did you just a question about Electron? Because I swear you asked about our RUST BACKEND. Let's talk more about that.
> I kind of don't understand why customer support would answer customer questions that way — Oh my, did you just a question about Electron? Because I swear you asked about our RUST BACKEND. Let's talk more about that.
I see two possibilities:
1. They were told "it was written in Rust, mention that a bunch and link this blogpost for street cred" and actually have no idea what either Rust or Electron is beyond they're "technologies."
They've heard complaints about Electron since the Linux beta. They do the same thing basically when anyone asks about buying instead of subscribing. Or any of the removed sync options. It's #2.
I've found the support on the their support forum to be quite lacking. Often times, people not knowing the answer and making things up or not answering the question. So this seems par for the course for them.
In addition to not answering the simple question in the tweet, they linked to an article about the Linux app, which in no way clarifies whether the Mac app uses the same UI framework.
The thing I find totally infuriating is, this strategy of decoupling the backend business logic into a performant, cross-platform Rust service seems really smart! Now that you have decoupled brains, you could put it behind a native front end, brilliant, Adobe should have done this with their Creative Suite a decade ago.
But no, they used this strategy to support a trash cross-platform frontend. Wonderful. Will be evaluating ElPass this weekend.
FWIW on Linux my 1Password is using 122MB Resident (with 37GB Virtual which is a weirdly huge amount) according to htop. It also uses about 1% of the CPU when idle according to system monitor. And according to sysprof it was in 6-10% of my machine's traces from some short samples I just took.
37GB virtual might just be a mostly-harmless convenient fiction for something like a BIBOP-style[1] allocator. I haven’t observed this with Electron apps, but WebKitGTK-based web browsers like Epiphany and Eolie do do funny things to my process list with their dozens of processes consuming 100+ GB virtual memory (in reality, address space) each.
>This is the kind of shit I knew was going to happen when they raised money and entered the VC rat race years ago. Things we original users loved, like great apps, would be less of a priority.
At least they weren't "joining" Google or Microsoft.
This is the second time that 1Password Co has done something that I consider a negative...
The first one being them "hiding" the standalone version purchase link.
Doesn't give me much faith in their future plans which seen to be all about change for changes sake and extracting as much money out of customers as possible.
That being said BitWarden uses Electron and Angular for their desktop apps as well.
Hiding the standalone version purchase link helps them justify the move to a subscription-only service:
> The overwhelming majority of people (97% in fact) choose to subscribe to our new service and many of those who initially purchased a license later changed their mind and traded it in for a membership.
I, for one could not find the standalone.
Now I feel like I've been had, and have a bad taste in my mouth. I'm moving to something else. Currently trying out Secrets for MacOS, it will be hard to work with my one PC as it's not crossplatform, but I think I can deal with that.
Could someone give a bird's eye view summary of why 1Password moving to Electron is bad? Are there documented security risks, or is it more just a UX/UI aesthetic issue?
It's popular to hate on Electron. The most common argument thrown around is "bloat". I also detect a perception among engineers that they consider Electron "the easy way out" vs. maintaining strictly native apps. Reminds me of the discourse around Sharkbite fittings on plumbing forums.
I have to wonder what percentage of 1Password users know what languages or frameworks 1Password uses, much less care what languages or frameworks it uses? I assume it must be a fraction of 1%.
Yes, if they are someone familiar with what Electron even is, which is not most people. And even among software engineers who might know and care about Electron, for what percentage of those people is Electron a dealbreaker?
It does not feel native to the OS. It does not have the same font styling, color styling, windowing behavior, and keyboard/mouse behavior as a native app.
To me, native apps aren't so much an issue as is bloat. Despite having a Chromium based browser (Vivaldi), I am required to install Chromium all over again with every Electron app, and that really blows up both disk space and memory, considering the number of Electron apps these days. Another big issue is performance, most Electron based apps aren't optimised for performance making them slower than Chrome itself despite using more memory.
Electron can be a blessing for small teams building complex apps for multiple platforms. It’s a positive to have a single interface that runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, and even the web browser.
But it comes at a price of higher resource usage and slower apps. It’s not a big deal to wait a couple seconds to load something like VSCode when I’m going to leave it open and use it all day, but I don’t want to invoke all of that overhead for a simple password manager that gets opened and closed all day.
I really wish they’d focus on fast, lean native apps. They have the funding, a high price point, and even recurring revenue to fund it. This feels like an arbitrary decision that sounds good on paper but misses the fact that they’re best served by small, lean native apps.
For me, the "bloat" issue is less significant than the way that Electron apps don't have native macOS controls. They feel like a web app in a window, and attempts to emulate macOS-style controls just feel like facsimiles.
> Could someone give a bird's eye view summary of why 1Password moving to Electron is bad?
There are a couple of security risks associated with moving to Electron, but I believe the company has the resources to keep up with them. So it's more of a user experience issue. I don't really mind how the app looks, as long as it looks the same as the other applications on my system, and works consistently amongst them, and it's here that Electron's bad reputation really starts to make itself known.
I downloaded the beta, signed in, and played around for a bit. Some thoughts:
• The scroll bars don't just look different, they act different. There's no overscroll, which I'm really used to. Also, when I scroll fast through a list, the scrolling indicator lags as it tries to catch up.
• Resizing the window lags a lot, and in between lag frames, you can see shades of grey as the renderer tries to catch up. 1Password 7 is damn near instant when you resize it.
• Icons and text pop into view after you've scrolled, rather than as you scroll. 1Password 7 is buttery smooth in comparison.
• Fonts look weird. 1Password 7 text looks like every other app on my system; 1Password 8 text looks blurry. Every time I look at it, it looks wrong.
• The Preferences window used to be a separate window, like it is for all other applications; now, it's a modal. You can't view the preferences and the vault at the same time.
• Oh, and it opened already using more memory than the 1Password 7 instance I've had running for _weeks_.
I really have no idea why they decided to ruin a great app like this. 1Password 8 is, as far as I can see, worse in every way than 1Password 7.
1Password and the Tower git client were somewhat similar: They started on native Mac first and years later introduced a native Windows version that lacked behind in features and polish.
1Password for Windows slowly(!) caught up, and even after all this investment, they decided that going for a web-based UI across all desktop OSes is the better solution.
Tower did not change this: Their Windows version is still lacking, and I am still confused by their website about which features are Mac-only and which are also on Windows.
Are they in a better position now for sticking with native apps? I stopped using them and moved to GitKraken that has the same UI across OSes. It is not as pleasing as that mature macOS version of Tower, but it is still better than constantly switching between an awesome and a "meh" app.
Maybe cross-platform consistency is more important than having one main attraction and multiple sideshows.
I used GitKraken on Linux a few years ago and never liked it. It would chug and really struggle with even moderate sized repos—not sure if they’ve improved performance since.
It’s very out-of-place design wise compared to Tower too, being an Electron app.
Was the windows app native? I haven't used to to often, but when I did (end of 2020) it felt fairly clunky.
I think the whole idea behind Electron is that they've also put out a native Linux version. Which is much, much better than having to run an extension in the browser, and gets some system integration (unlock with yubikey).
From the screenshots, it would seem the Mac version is the same as the Linux version (currently version 8.1.1 on my machine). One big step back is if you have multiple vaults (say personal + company) you have to open each one individually. No more one password unlocks everything.
Especially since the "core" is written in a different language anyway, which can be common across platforms.
I've never really done actual GUI development, but the 1Password GUI is fairly limited in what you can do. It's basically a list you can filter and a bunch of text fields. Yeah, it shows an animated countdown on the OTP field, which consumes a ton of CPU. Can't say I see a lot of value in that. [0]
My point is that to someone whose job it is code, it shouldn't take to long to do a similar thing in QT / GTK. But I guess they'd still need more people than doing just Electron.
---
[0] When the first versions came out on Linux, there was actually an FAQ entry about unusually high CPU usage. The solution given was to switch to a login without OTP or to close the main window.
I’ve been very happy with Fork on macOS. Paid for it a few years ago and never been asked to pay for a new version, even though I totally would at this point.
A couple of times when I’ve had support queries I’ve got quick email responses directly from the developer too.
Does GitKraken still require an account? I'm not sure if that's what bothered me about it when I tried it, but there was something that just got in my way. Was pretty decent at visualizing branches if I recall.
I'm somewhat baffled and amused by how much hate Electron gets on HN when an existing app moves to it or a new app uses it while at the same time whenever editors and/or IDEs are discussed Visual Studio Code (an Electron all) is massively praised.
VSCode was an electron app from day one and never tried to be a first-class Mac app while the only reason 1Password is around today is because customers loved having a lightweight, native manager that always was quick to support new OS features.
Essentially, native Mac apps switching to electron is a bait and switch.
Oh that's neat, I didn't even know that was a feature. (Part of why I'm asking, I'm always wondering if there's good ways to use something that I don't know about.)
Drag and drop, touchID, AppleWatch unlock, I suppose native menubar (1password mini) access might be on the table... Maybe keyboard clearing (of OTPs).. Universal clipboard?
It’s also always fun to accidentally zoom in on the entire UI of the Electron app, pushing all the toolbars off-screen. This has happened to me multiple times in nearly every Electron app I’ve used, with VS Code being the most common.
This is based on what? Poorly written apps like Slack? I'm so surprised how people make blanket statements like this. I'll wait and see how performance is affected by the change before making such uninformed judgements
Slack was actually very poorly written by their own admission until they recently overhauled a lot of it. It's not particularly all that bad anymore though I don't have access to my Mac right now to check. 1Password has taken great strides so far to improve security and enhance performance in their apps and extensions. All I can say is I will wait and see rather than make baseless accusations and hyperbole
I literally don't understand the derision. Not one person in this thread has said anything about the Linux client yet everyone wants to chime in about how electron sucks and is a resource hog without an inkling of what the actual state of their client is
The thread seems to have actual performance metrics and some features that are missing from the new release. Yes, this is not looking great for them. Hopefully some stuff gets sorted but this does look grim. It's not too bad but 150 MB for a password manager 3x what it used to be is not great
Yeah actually, they will. The reason why Slack had all of those issues was because they kept all of their business logic in JS, which led to increased memory consumption. With 1Password, the UI is just a thin layer on top of a Rust-based core, which keeps things fast and memory-light.
Also I checked Activity Monitor on macOS. 1Password 7 uses up 120 MB of RAM. The new 1Password uses up... 50MB.
Also - they’ve publically states the new app was built using technologies none of their employees have used before so I don’t expect them to build an electron app better than anyone else.
For reference, using native 1Password 7 on an M1 Air, the main background app is using 190.8 MB and there's another 26 MB split across two other processes...
To be fair VS Code is one of the best Electron apps and its feature and support by vendors makes up for it. Heck you can use it in a browser (CodeSpaces) or connect to a remote instance via local app.
VS Code does laps around the "native" Nova editor.
Speed-wise it's not the best, but it's till reasonable.
In this case we already have a reference. Lastpass had a native mac client. It wasn’t great but it was fast and relatively light weight. Their new Electron version is borderline useless for enterprise use. It takes minutes to log in, it’s slow and the interface it flaky.
It’s not unrealistic that people will fear the same is going to happen to 1Password.
VS Code is the example that shows that you can create great Electron apps, but can you name three more?
Electron get a lot of flak, because it’s misused by webdevelopers, who thinks it will magically make them able to write good desktop app.
Microsoft also had the good fortune that few expect an IDE to be particular light weight. For what it does no one is going to care if it eats a gig or two of RAM. If my chat client or password manager does the same I’m going to be annoyed.
VS Code is a heavyweight. It is almost a full IDE, handling hundreds of files, doing a lot of complex things, including laying out documents and networking, things that browsers are good at. I still prefer Sublime Text for performance reasons, but overall, the overhead of using a full browser is not ridiculous.
But a password manager is supposed to be a small, unobtrusive app, something you forget unless you need a password. Not the big thing you are working with all day long.
A semi-common workflow for me is to just copy my entire file into a Sublime buffer, make edits there, and paste it back. Everything is so much snappier.
VS Code is very good as far as Electron apps go. It would undoubtedly be much better as a fully native app—unfortunately it probably wouldn’t exist outside of Windows.
I feel the same way about JetBrains products—I sure wish they weren’t clunky Java behemoths, but I’m really glad they run on the OS I use.
What was even the value proposition of using 1password over the native keychain access on mac? Generating passwords? Safari does this now (albeit always ignores the website's specific password rules and gets it wrong most of the time)
I've switched from 1Password to Enpass as well, however my experience is a bit... mixed...
Not sure i'd fault something specific, however the overall polish 1Password has still isn't there.
I'm using Enpass on Linux, Mac and iOS - my SO still has an 1Password 4.something install (i think) on her Windows computer.
If that one is going to somehow "expire", i'm going to selfhost Bitwarden probably...
Edit: ok, wow - there really is an App called Elpass - TIL...
Edit2: sure, bring on the downvotes :S i guess no one ever naively assumed that 2 letters almost next to each other could have been a typo.
To further explain why i assumed it was a typo is because i've never, ever heard of Elpass before - all the while being a user of password managers for years. Even more so when researching my options about 2 years ago before switching to Enpass and never heard of Elpass being mentioned, not even once.
I suppose it is pretty new-ish then? Or a hidden gem? Or gosh both?
Any suggestions for a family looking to share some passwords and not others? This, for me, is the killer feature for 1Password’s subscription service and why I happily pay them each year.
It blows my mind that people voluntarily lock themselves into Apple ecosystems like this. This is the very same Apple that recently said it is going to inspect all your synced photos.
Even if you're mostly Apple today, it seems prudent to have some sort of exit strategy that doesn't involve massive switching costs.
I use a variety of platforms. I'm happy 1password switched to Electron; it means I have a Linux version that works super well. It even integrates with face recognition through Howdy.
By the way, I also think subscription models are superior to buy-once. They align incentives for customers and developers better -- they got a bad rap thanks to Adobe charging silly amounts of money, but 1password isn't doing that.
Oh no, I had only ever used their web interface. Thank you for the heads up. I personally refuse to install anything electron or nodejs on my systems, so I guess I won't be using the desktop bitwarden client anytime soon.
Are there any good bitwarden alternatives? (shared env pass managers)
Can we start talking in terms of "Environmental Impact"?
Work out the energy use per hour of the old vs the new system * number of installs. See how much extra millions of tons of carbon 1password is spewing into the air because of their technology change!
Reminder: when a company chooses a technology stack that suits them (the developers of the software) and NOT the end users, then things tend to go badly.
Typical tech company will use 90% of it's energy running the HVAC unit so that Susan in accounting stops complaining about being cold but people will freak out cause the app uses slightly more energy.
Man, this is like when someone was arguing with me that Right on Reds is not that impactful to the environment, they said something like "Oh on average it only cuts off 30 seconds off of someone's commute."
Which is the reason why some of us are upset. Before version 8 of 1Password you could have a local database that you could manually and properly sync to different places if you so chose.
And backups. With 1Password 8, you have no choice but to upload everything to their cloud. And if you don't trust their backups online, and want to follow the 1-2-3 rule you have to spend a lot of time finding the local cache 1Password keeps so you can make a backup by syncing a folder, or use the export feature which doesn't create a perfect mirror of what is stored in 1Password when it comes to tags, links, documents
200 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 280 ms ] thread- On macOS, half the time auto fill doesn't work. Saving a password is very inconsistent.
- When you auto generate a password, the least resistance UI workflow is to first save and fill it - but then when you create the account it is saved again, making it a duplicate.
- The "move to trash" button is obscurely hidden somehow (used to be much better).
- And don't get me started on the Windows client - on my fast gaming PC it takes forever just to unlock the vault.
I've cancelled my subscription and won't renew once it runs out.
Edit: Okay, it sounds like from the comments, it does use Electron. Then my followup question is, if people are upset with 1Password moving in this direction, then Bitwarden would not be a good alternative, no?
No idea if your experience has been different, just a thought!
Not saying it doesn't frustrate me with other things. I haven't used the Mac client in a while but I remember it being really good though
It’s really interesting to hear these differences in experience for the same product. I wonder why it’s happening? Gotta be something going on there.
This is going to cause all sorts of grief when we are forced to upgrade the iOS app to align with 8 and lose the ability to sync via that. I wouldn't mind paying for a Family license if I didn't have to use their sync service - I just don't trust it (marketing-wise, reliability-wise and security-wise, since it's designed purely as a retention factor) and would vastly prefer sticking to pure iCloud syncing.
If that's accurate, goodbye 1password. I was irked (but understood) the move into a subscription model, but this step would make no sense from a personal sec-ops perspective. While I generally am not a fan of iCloud (and how it forces certain things to sync onto devices), I really do NOT want yet another "cloud" to store incredibly sensitive info like password vaults.
(Curmudgeon engaged) These company communications are just a few ironic emojis away from fitting in with Facebook MLM spam and don't instill much confidence.
I don't think they care - they are chasing the enterprise market who doesn't care how well the desktop client works as long as it integrates with their enterprise SSO solution and gives them the audit logs they need.
My company uses 1Password, and their license includes a free 1Password family license for employees.
https://twitter.com/1Password/status/1425429965747720200
https://twitter.com/1Password/status/1425470169133031435
https://twitter.com/1Password/status/1425476888072495111
I've been a 1Password user for years but have staunchly resisted going to their subscription model because I want my data local. It's infuriating that 1Password has steadily downplayed standalone versions to the point where it's almost impossible to find.
I guess I'm staying on the current version for as long as possible and then considering options.
I will state for the record that I think this is mindblowingly stupid.
Eh? They literally show the standalone app in the Tweet this submission links to.
[0] https://twitter.com/_cprecioso/status/1425429383880318980
Have you ever used an electron app? Typically slow and laggy. Worse, your workflow is typically slower since the user don’t get any the advantages of native integration.
They didn't even bother using a real window for the app settings, they just use an Electron modal window.
Electron is the explanation and it takes up CPU, RAM and Disk Space. If you are running other Electron apps, 1Password is now going to be even more slower.
> and in comparison to what?
In comparison to 1Password 7 which that is fully native vs the upcoming 1Password 8 which is sitting inside an entire browser.
But even through basic inspection, almost all Electron apps are always more than 120MB of disk space (After unzipping) and when run it is copied to RAM which is at least another 120MB.
Multiply that with the number of Electron apps you are currently running and you can see that it doesn't scale on the limited resources of your own machine. Especially if the user is primarily using Chrome with tons of tabs open.
[0] https://scl.utah.edu/pdf/mac_mgrs/20200617_mm/20200617_mm_el...
I see two possibilities:
1. They were told "it was written in Rust, mention that a bunch and link this blogpost for street cred" and actually have no idea what either Rust or Electron is beyond they're "technologies."
2. It's a ham-handed attempt at distraction.
My money is on #1.
Finally we bundled everything using Electron to allow us to integrate deeply with the operating system.
But no, they used this strategy to support a trash cross-platform frontend. Wonderful. Will be evaluating ElPass this weekend.
[1]: https://foldoc.org/Big+bag+of+pages
At least they weren't "joining" Google or Microsoft.
That being said BitWarden uses Electron and Angular for their desktop apps as well.
> The overwhelming majority of people (97% in fact) choose to subscribe to our new service and many of those who initially purchased a license later changed their mind and traded it in for a membership.
(Source: https://1password.community/discussion/comment/601917/#Comme...)
Which is quite dishonest IMO.
I have to wonder what percentage of 1Password users know what languages or frameworks 1Password uses, much less care what languages or frameworks it uses? I assume it must be a fraction of 1%.
But it comes at a price of higher resource usage and slower apps. It’s not a big deal to wait a couple seconds to load something like VSCode when I’m going to leave it open and use it all day, but I don’t want to invoke all of that overhead for a simple password manager that gets opened and closed all day.
I really wish they’d focus on fast, lean native apps. They have the funding, a high price point, and even recurring revenue to fund it. This feels like an arbitrary decision that sounds good on paper but misses the fact that they’re best served by small, lean native apps.
There are a couple of security risks associated with moving to Electron, but I believe the company has the resources to keep up with them. So it's more of a user experience issue. I don't really mind how the app looks, as long as it looks the same as the other applications on my system, and works consistently amongst them, and it's here that Electron's bad reputation really starts to make itself known.
I downloaded the beta, signed in, and played around for a bit. Some thoughts:
• The scroll bars don't just look different, they act different. There's no overscroll, which I'm really used to. Also, when I scroll fast through a list, the scrolling indicator lags as it tries to catch up.
• Resizing the window lags a lot, and in between lag frames, you can see shades of grey as the renderer tries to catch up. 1Password 7 is damn near instant when you resize it.
• Icons and text pop into view after you've scrolled, rather than as you scroll. 1Password 7 is buttery smooth in comparison.
• Fonts look weird. 1Password 7 text looks like every other app on my system; 1Password 8 text looks blurry. Every time I look at it, it looks wrong.
• The Preferences window used to be a separate window, like it is for all other applications; now, it's a modal. You can't view the preferences and the vault at the same time.
• Oh, and it opened already using more memory than the 1Password 7 instance I've had running for _weeks_.
I really have no idea why they decided to ruin a great app like this. 1Password 8 is, as far as I can see, worse in every way than 1Password 7.
Wondering if they will refund my outstanding balance into cash
1Password for Windows slowly(!) caught up, and even after all this investment, they decided that going for a web-based UI across all desktop OSes is the better solution.
Tower did not change this: Their Windows version is still lacking, and I am still confused by their website about which features are Mac-only and which are also on Windows.
Are they in a better position now for sticking with native apps? I stopped using them and moved to GitKraken that has the same UI across OSes. It is not as pleasing as that mature macOS version of Tower, but it is still better than constantly switching between an awesome and a "meh" app.
Maybe cross-platform consistency is more important than having one main attraction and multiple sideshows.
It’s very out-of-place design wise compared to Tower too, being an Electron app.
I think the whole idea behind Electron is that they've also put out a native Linux version. Which is much, much better than having to run an extension in the browser, and gets some system integration (unlock with yubikey).
From the screenshots, it would seem the Mac version is the same as the Linux version (currently version 8.1.1 on my machine). One big step back is if you have multiple vaults (say personal + company) you have to open each one individually. No more one password unlocks everything.
1Password could afford a native Linux version.
Yes.
> 1Password could afford a native Linux version.
Especially since the "core" is written in a different language anyway, which can be common across platforms.
I've never really done actual GUI development, but the 1Password GUI is fairly limited in what you can do. It's basically a list you can filter and a bunch of text fields. Yeah, it shows an animated countdown on the OTP field, which consumes a ton of CPU. Can't say I see a lot of value in that. [0]
My point is that to someone whose job it is code, it shouldn't take to long to do a similar thing in QT / GTK. But I guess they'd still need more people than doing just Electron.
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[0] When the first versions came out on Linux, there was actually an FAQ entry about unusually high CPU usage. The solution given was to switch to a login without OTP or to close the main window.
[1]: https://git-fork.com
A couple of times when I’ve had support queries I’ve got quick email responses directly from the developer too.
As mentioned, the developer(s) are very responsive to e-mails and have been very nice when dealing with my stupid questions and suggestions.
Definitely recommended.
Yet another app that will no longer be accessible to many people.
VSCode was an electron app from day one and never tried to be a first-class Mac app while the only reason 1Password is around today is because customers loved having a lightweight, native manager that always was quick to support new OS features.
Essentially, native Mac apps switching to electron is a bait and switch.
There were a couple quirks in the early days but it improved at a rapid clip.
It's almost like they have a native Rust backend that makes it possible for them to still use platform-specific features like that...
I literally don't understand the derision. Not one person in this thread has said anything about the Linux client yet everyone wants to chime in about how electron sucks and is a resource hog without an inkling of what the actual state of their client is
Also I checked Activity Monitor on macOS. 1Password 7 uses up 120 MB of RAM. The new 1Password uses up... 50MB.
Also - they’ve publically states the new app was built using technologies none of their employees have used before so I don’t expect them to build an electron app better than anyone else.
With the UI closed, the new app only uses 50MB of memory. They've done an excellent job on this.
VS Code does laps around the "native" Nova editor.
Speed-wise it's not the best, but it's till reasonable.
It’s not unrealistic that people will fear the same is going to happen to 1Password.
VS Code is the example that shows that you can create great Electron apps, but can you name three more?
Electron get a lot of flak, because it’s misused by webdevelopers, who thinks it will magically make them able to write good desktop app.
Microsoft also had the good fortune that few expect an IDE to be particular light weight. For what it does no one is going to care if it eats a gig or two of RAM. If my chat client or password manager does the same I’m going to be annoyed.
I am a happy user of VS Code but it feels super slow if you use it shortly after using Qt Creator (QtCreator is written in C++).
But a password manager is supposed to be a small, unobtrusive app, something you forget unless you need a password. Not the big thing you are working with all day long.
I feel the same way about JetBrains products—I sure wish they weren’t clunky Java behemoths, but I’m really glad they run on the OS I use.
Another is MFA support, native keychain doesn't support that at all.
But this is such a step backwards it doesn’t seem worth continuing with 1Password, after more than a dozen years.
Completely native to Mac and iOS, and sync via iCloud.
https://elpass.app
I've switched from 1Password to Enpass as well, however my experience is a bit... mixed...
Not sure i'd fault something specific, however the overall polish 1Password has still isn't there.
I'm using Enpass on Linux, Mac and iOS - my SO still has an 1Password 4.something install (i think) on her Windows computer.
If that one is going to somehow "expire", i'm going to selfhost Bitwarden probably...
Edit: ok, wow - there really is an App called Elpass - TIL...
Edit2: sure, bring on the downvotes :S i guess no one ever naively assumed that 2 letters almost next to each other could have been a typo.
To further explain why i assumed it was a typo is because i've never, ever heard of Elpass before - all the while being a user of password managers for years. Even more so when researching my options about 2 years ago before switching to Enpass and never heard of Elpass being mentioned, not even once.
I suppose it is pretty new-ish then? Or a hidden gem? Or gosh both?
first impressions, massively faster than 1Password 7. Feels "lean."
[1]: https://elpass.app/privacy-policy
Even if you're mostly Apple today, it seems prudent to have some sort of exit strategy that doesn't involve massive switching costs.
I use a variety of platforms. I'm happy 1password switched to Electron; it means I have a Linux version that works super well. It even integrates with face recognition through Howdy.
By the way, I also think subscription models are superior to buy-once. They align incentives for customers and developers better -- they got a bad rap thanks to Adobe charging silly amounts of money, but 1password isn't doing that.
Are there any good bitwarden alternatives? (shared env pass managers)
Work out the energy use per hour of the old vs the new system * number of installs. See how much extra millions of tons of carbon 1password is spewing into the air because of their technology change!
Reminder: when a company chooses a technology stack that suits them (the developers of the software) and NOT the end users, then things tend to go badly.
Multiply the "slightly" by 100 million installs!
...Ooookay, now times that by everyone commuting.
Recent and related: 1password is considering a self-hosted option to store vaults - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28104134 - Aug 2021 (215 comments)
And backups. With 1Password 8, you have no choice but to upload everything to their cloud. And if you don't trust their backups online, and want to follow the 1-2-3 rule you have to spend a lot of time finding the local cache 1Password keeps so you can make a backup by syncing a folder, or use the export feature which doesn't create a perfect mirror of what is stored in 1Password when it comes to tags, links, documents