LastPass Review
$3.0/Month
Is LastPass the best password manager in the industry? Well, it sure claims it is. Its 33 million+ user-base thinks it is. Money.com/ G2 and other industry leaders think so too.
However, why should you believe what others think of it? You shouldn’t. This is why I urge you to go through this LastPass review first.
Let’s discuss what it offers and what it lacks. If by the end of this review you think it’s worth your time, go for it. Else, you can always type your passwords manually, eh?
Oh, LastPass is 100% free. Just in case you were worried of this being a sales pitch.
What is LastPass?
It’s a tool that “saves your passwords”.
Let me simplify it for you. Once you login on any website/app, LastPass saves your username and password.
From then on, everytime you login to the app/website in the future, LastPass auto-fills the password for you when you’re on that website.
This also protects you from phishing attacks. LastPass will only fill the password if the URL is exactly the same as the one from which the password saved.
It obviously does so much more than just that. Some of its features include:
- 100% free forever.
- Password sharing
- Confidential vault
- Dark web monitoring
- Very secure 2-FA logins
- Password generating
- 1GB free storage
- Cross-platform compatibility etc.
- Get LastPass: https://www.lastpass.com
However, I’m sure you’ve a very important question in your brain right now- Does that mean LastPass has all your passwords?
The short answer- No.
Keep reading for the long answer.
End-to-End Encrypted (Zero Knowledge Encryption)
All your passwords on LastPass are end-to-end encrypted. This is also known as “Zero Knowledge encryption”.
This means, no third-party, not even LastPass has access to your saved passwords.
Only you can access your passwords using your “Master Password” or the “LastPass Authenticator” (discussed later).
This isn’t an ethical restriction for LastPass but rather a technical one. Meaning, even if LastPass wanted to, or is forced by a third party, they still can’t access your saved passwords.
Forever Free Plan
Before you continue on this LastPass review, it’s important to know that it’s free. Yes, you aren’t required to spend a single penny in order to use LastPass.
You get to store unlimited passwords even on the free plan. The security and encryption too, is exactly the same for both the free and premium plans.
Obviously, there are feature differences. I’ll mention the availability of each feature when said feature is discussed on this LastPass review.
Password Sharing
If you’re a business or just someone with immense trust within the family, you may need to share passwords, eh? At the least, sharing Netflix passwords sure is common, isn’t it?
Even on serious occasions, in the event of someone’s unavailability or death, you may need to login to specific accounts.
LastPass lets you do just that. There’s one on one sharing (free) as well as one-to-many sharing. They let you share passwords either with one other person, or many other people.
Cross-Platform
Most of you on this LastPass review probably own multiple devices. At the least, you’ve got a computer and a cell phone.
Imagine saving a password on your computer and then being able to login to the website automatically on your phone!
Well, LastPass is cross-platform. Meaning, let’s say you logged in to a platform from your computer and LastPass saved your password. Whenever you login to the same website from any other device, LastPass will auto-fill your password there as well.
Imagine you’re traveling, without your primary laptop/device. Without LastPass, you’d be stuck and would be locked out of most of your accounts. That’s a major problem this cross-platform compatibility solves.
Do note that this is a premium feature and only available for paid users.
Confidential Vault
Didn’t I say LastPass is more than just a password storage service? Well, one of its features is that it lets you store more than just passwords.
I personally use this feature to store my credit card details. You can also store notes, school/college locker combinations, bank details and so much more.
It even has “categories/folders” for each data type. E.g. I’ve got 2 credit cards and I can store each individually in my “Payment Cards” > Business / Social folders.
The point is, you get access to this data if you’ve access to your LastPass account. This too is E2E encrypted and hence not accessible to any third party.
This feature is available for all users.
LastPass Dark Web Monitoring
Dark Web isn’t something a lot of people know, or talk about. However, you totally should.
The Dark Web is much bigger than the normal web you browse. Without you knowing, there’s probably tons of data about you and your bank accounts that’s already being auctioned off.
Now, you can’t manually check every listing/forum/marketplace on the dark web to ensure a certain file doesn’t have your info up for sale.
That’s where LastPass comes to the rescue.
It has this Dark Web monitoring feature. It constantly monitors the dark web and lets you know if and when your data is found up for sale. This too is a paid feature.
LastPass Authenticator and Multifactor Authentication (MFA)
These are two additional security features that make LastPass hacker-proof. These are basically additional form of authentication which will be required before someone can access your account.
First, there’s the LastPass Authenticator. You can download it for your smartphone from your device’s app store. This can be used to authenticate a login attempt.
The authenticator eliminates the need to remember your password. You also won’t need to share your password with your employees/friends.
Then, there’s Multifactor Authentication.
- OTPs and SMS
- Voice recognition
- Face recognition
- Fingerprint authentication
This ensures that even if your password is leaked, your LastPass account still remains secure.
Both of these features (LastPass Authenticator and MFA) are also available on the free plan.
Password generator, change reminder
Extreme compatibility
LastPass has a native application for nearly every OS and device out there.
This means you can use LastPass on a computer running:
- Windows, Mac, Or Linux
It also has browser extensions for:
- Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and Opera.
Password generator
We all use dozens of usernames and passwords, don’t we? Unfortunately, over 2/3rd of the world’s population uses the same password across multiple sites.
Hey, I get it. Using a new and unique password that’s hard to guess for each new site isn’t easy. Considering how we use dozens of sites every day, you probably won’t even remember which password was used on which website.
Fortunately, LastPass has a solution to that problem. First, it has a Password Generator.
It can generate very hard and secure passwords for you for specific sites. As you can see, it even lets you customize it!
You can choose “easy to say and/or easy to read” passwords. You can also choose if you need upper/lower case characters, numbers, symbols in your password.
Then, it remembers the login credentials and the website where these are supposed to be used.
Security Dashboard
This is like your overview or command center. Once you log in to your LastPass account, LastPass shows you a security score.
This is calculated based on the strength, freshness, and many other factors related to your passwords.
I personally use it to easily identify “weak” and “reused” passwords. At a glance, I get access to all the passwords which are easy to guess/break into.
There are clear tags next to each site’s password if they’re weak or reused. All I’ve got to do is, change them! Not that hard.
Unfortunately, though, this is a paid feature and not available on the free plan.
1 GB Free storage
The vault isn’t just limited to “passwords” or “Text content”.
It also allows you to store documents (photos) that you’d rather not lose or share with others.
This may be your passport, credit card, SSN or anything else.
Again, this is a paid feature and not on the free plan.
How Much does LastPass Cost?
So, how much does it cost?
As mentioned in the early sections of this LastPass password manager review; there’s a forever free plan.
However, if you need unrestricted access to all features, you must opt for one of the paid plans. There are two of those:
- Premium: $3.00/month
- Families: $4.00/month.
You can get a 30-day free trial of the Premium plan right away. That’s enough time for you to understand the tool’s potential, isn’t it?
Even if you do not upgrade after 30 days, you still can use LastPass for free forever. Only the “paid” features are removed. All your passwords/websites/notes and everything else stays as is.
LastPass review: Final verdict- Is it worth it?
Yes. LastPass is more than worth it. Today, I can’t imagine my digital life without LastPass and that’s not an exaggeration.
Considering how I’ve got to manage multiple social media accounts, websites, server logins, e-commerce logins and so much more, LastPass is a life-saver.
Considering how most of its features are 100% free forever, I don’t see how it’s not a good deal. Even the paid plans aren’t that expensive.
Hey, I’m not saying go buy LastPass. Don’t. All I’m saying is, go give its 30-day free premium plan a try. If you don’t think it’s worth it, either uninstall or keep using it free forever, eh?
