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Apple Passwords app works with Chrome and Edge – and that could tempt Lastpass fans to switch

June 13, 2024
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Alongside a roar of applause for the Calculator app for iPad at Apple’s WWDC 2024 keynote, the crowd seemed pretty happy with the debut of Passwords as well. It’s an aptly named app that takes the popular password manager feature of iCloud Keychain and gives it a home outside of Settings.

Passwords is a dedicated app for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro that safely stores logins and passwords in an encrypted spot that needs to be authenticated with Face ID, Touch ID, or a password to open. It’s still free to use, and considering it’s a dedicated app, it’s now a true competitor for Lastpass and 1Password.

While some have thought that you might be locked into using it only with Safari – after all, it’s made by Apple, and Safari is Apple’s browser – we have good news.

A browser extension saves the day

Apple Passwords App Slide, WWDC 2024 Keynote — (Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)

Apple Passwords will work with third-party browsers – Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge – via a browser extension. It’s actually the iCloud Extension, which also currently lets iCloud Keychain users have the autofill experience. This way, even if your browser of preference isn’t Safari, you’ll still be able to use the autofill functionality of Apple Passwords.

In a demo, I got to see the application's interface in action; much like other password managers, you can see a full list alphabetically of all your logins or see it broken up categorically. Once more, Passwords is also home to Wi-Fi networks, which is super handy, and the application supports Passkeys and 2FA codes. For the latter, you can even import a library of 2FA codes from a different service like Google Authenticator.

You can also create a shared group, which could be handy for sharing, let’s say, streaming service logins with the family. Rather than having to be around to copy and paste individually, you can share your collection of logins. It all seems pretty handy, but to make accessing stored passwords even easier, Apple also made a Menu Bar experience for passwords.

Essentially, this lets the app icon – a single key positioned vertically – live at the top of your Mac. When you need an account login or password in a jiffy, click it and authenticate it. You can either scroll or search for a specific login to quickly copy and paste it. Pretty neat. Pulling a login from here or using the autofill functionality happened promptly.

Much like the current experience with iCloud Keychain or another password manager, it will warn you of passwords that have been reused, compromised, or even leaked and suggest changing them.

Maybe best of all is that your logins will sync across your Apple devices via the Passwords app for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS, but can also be accessed on Windows via the web. Oh, and of course, when Passwords launches later in 2024, it’ll be free; you’ll just need an Apple Account.

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June 11, 2024
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WWDC 2024 saw Apple unveil all of the changes coming to its various software platforms later in the year. The tech giant debuted iOS 18 and unveiled Apple Intelligence.

In between all of the major reveals, the company also made several smaller announcements during macOS Sequoia's debut that could be just as impactful as the system updates. And one of the features that caught our eye is a new app: Passwords.

Think of it as a first-party version of LastPass. It helps users manage account passwords, verification codes, passkeys and just about everything in between. Apple’s Passwords app gives you quick access to your credentials and organizes everything in a user-friendly interface.

On the left side of the window, you’ll see each of the six categories housing the logins. One shows you everything currently stored, one for passkeys, and one for information about Wi-Fi networks.

Apple Passwords app - Security Alerts — (Image credit: Apple)

You’ll also notice a section for security alerts. If you go to that tab, you might see notifications recommending you update some of your passwords as they might be too weak, be used elsewhere, or it’s been compromised. Everything is laid out neatly with an accompanying icon for the account's website.

Deleted is next to the Security tab, where you can presumably restore erased passwords. Below the different categories is the Shared Group section that holds logins for multiple apps under a specific name. The demonstration shows a group for an entire family and one for the office.

Notable features

Apple states that the Passwords app builds on top of their long-running Keychain system and is a major upgrade. When it ships later this year, it'll be available on macOS Sequoia, iOS 18, iPadOS18, Vision Pro, and PCs through the iCloud for Windows app. Autofill is supported throughout all the different versions, meaning that when you sign onto a site with a login stored for you, it'll automatically fill it in.

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We would love to know how well Apple’s software stacks up to the likes of LastPass and other password managers. To get the most out of something like LastPass, you have to pay a monthly subscription to have all the features like “access across all devices.” If the Password app is totally free (and we think it will be), it’ll give all these managers a run for their money. Either way, we'll know for sure when the app rolls out with macOS Sequoia later this fall. Or you can wait until July for the public beta.

A metric ton was revealed at the event. Be sure to check out TechRadar’s roundup of the 13 things we learned at WWDC 2024.

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December 14, 2021
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LogMeIn has revealed its intentions to spin off the popular password manager and security tool LastPass as a standalone company.

The company's password manager is used by over 30m users and 85k businesses worldwide and is set for strong and sustained growth going forward as both consumers and businesses continue to prioritize password security.

By establishing LastPass as a standalone business, LogMeIn plans to increase investment in its customer experience, go-to-market functions and engineering to accelerate its growth in password management, Single Sign-On (SSO) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).

Chief executive officer of LogMeIn, Bill Wagner provided further details behind the reasoning to spin off LastPass in a press release, saying:

“The substantial scale of LastPass, its tremendous growth, and its market leading position and brand makes it a perfect candidate to seize new opportunities as its own standalone company. Today's announcement also reflects our strategic priority to strengthen and invest in our flexible work enablement portfolio across unified communications and collaboration and IT management and support. We believe that LogMeIn is well positioned to continue to deliver strong results and capitalize on the tremendous opportunity in today’s virtual environment.”

Spinning off LastPass

According to LogMeIn, the significant majority of LastPass' business is represented by corporate customers which makes sense given how password management has become a business imperative for organizations of all sizes.

At the same time, the shift to working from home during the pandemic has fueled the adoption of new accounts and applications with 50 percent of those surveyed in the company's 2021 Psychology of Passwords report saying that they now use twice the number of accounts today compared to pre-pandemic levels.

LastPass employs a zero-knowledge security model which empowers end users to generate, secure and share credentials seamlessly while also monitoring their personal information on the Dark Web. By reducing the number of credentials users need to remember through simplified access with SSO and passwordless MFA, LastPass further improves security for businesses.

We'll likely hear more regarding LastPass becoming a standalone company next year when LogMeIn's plans go into effect.

We've also featured the best password manager and best business password manager

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