NordPass could do with some improvement — 6/10

Background

I am no stranger to a password manager as I’ve been using LastPass for several years. I remember being very impressed when they were the first (?) to come out with support for filling credentials into arbitrary Android apps. But these days, with support for password managers being built into Android, this advantage over its competitors has been nullified. Generally, LastPass has served me adequately. There are a few things about the experience which annoy me; thus I am on the hunt for a better alternative.

Here is a brief wishlist for what I’d like over LastPass:

• Faster interface. LastPass takes a second to show menus
• Faster web browsing. My Chrome is kinda slow to load pages, and I read somewhere that LastPass is a significant contributor to this (Update: link)
• The ability to fill passwords into arbitrary desktop apps, e.g. Steam / terminal, without having to manually look it up and copy & paste

NordPass

I have a NordVPN subscription, and today I saw an email from them that I’d get a free month of NordVPN added for simply installing NordPass. I had been thinking of beginning my search for a new password manager anyway, so twas a good opportunity to do so.

In concluding my evaluation, I realised that rather than just abandon their fledgling product, it would be the nice thing to do to let them know why I was unsatisfied. After emailing my feedback, I thought this could actually be worth sharing. I may even continue to document my search.

So, below is the email I sent them:

Hi,

I just evaluated NordPass for my needs, and have unfortunately decided against switching to it; I thought you might appreciate feedback on why this was. I am coming from using LastPass for many years, and found NordPass to have too many usability annoyances and missing features. I understand this is a relatively new product, so thought giving feedback was pertinent.

- I could not find a way to get it to fill in my shipping address into a site

- It concerns me that I can’t view my passwords on a webpage. If I’m, say, at the library and my phone is flat, and I am at the mercy of a public computer where I do not have the ability to install software or a browser extension, I would not be able to access any of my accounts.

- When I click on the Chrome extension, I want the search field to be auto-focused

- When I am manually adding a new password (click on the Chrome extension -> Add Item -> Password), I want:
+ The site name and URL to be auto-filled
+ The NordPass window to take focus if it is already open (this also applies to the Open Fullscreen option)

- When I right-click an item in the Chrome extension, I want the options menu to appear

- When I am signing up for an account on a site, I want a quick way to auto-fill my email address

- When I have many accounts on a site and I’m selecting one from the dropdown on a password field, I want to see more of them at once

- It is confusing that I have to remember two key passwords: My Nord password and a NordPass master password. These should either be merged into one, or have the option to do so. Sure, I could set them to be the same, but it seems like an unnecessary layer for new users who don’t share their Nord password with anyone. Or perhaps make it so I only need to remember the NordPass password, and that can also sign me into my Nord account?

- For sites where I have many accounts, most of the time I only use the one account. It would make sense to not have to scan the list in the dropdown for this one account every time, and have it at the top instead (or sort by most used / last used / have an option to choose the sort method)

- When importing something like 900 passwords, it did take a minute or two — some sort of progress indicator would be nice to show how long remains.

- On Android, when I have just autofilled a password to log in (to a website in Chrome), don’t then prompt ‘Save password in NordPass?’

Now for what you’ve done better than LastPass:

- Performance. Everything is lightweight, and interactions are really snappy

- I appreciated how easy it was to import all my data from LastPass

- Managing folders — in particular: multi-select, and taking items out of a folder

- Sharing, presumably. Anything beats LastPass there =P

Also, I just wanted to mention that whilst I evaluated this mostly on Windows, I primarily use Linux, so love that it’s a first-class citizen for NordPass.

I hope this feedback is of some help. You’ve got solid foundations — it mostly just needs a bit more UX polish now.

Cheers,

-Brendan

Next

I could see NordPass was new just from the user numbers on the Chrome Web Store compared to some other options:

• NordPass: 80,000+ users
• LastPass: 10,000,000+ users
• Dashlane: 4,000,000+ users
• 1Password X: 800,000+ users

I’ve heard good things about Dashlane (well, at least part of that’s probably from their YouTube channel sponsorships) so I think that’ll be what I try next.

Edit: Actually, I’d had a recommendation for Bitwarden previously — I rather like how it’s open source, so maybe I’ll give that a go first.

I use Dropbox, and I’ve seen they recently launched a password manager product; amusingly, NordVPN/NordPass have come out with a Dropbox-like product, NordLocker. The Dropbox and Nord gangs are encroaching on each other’s territory! =P

Edit 2: I’ve been using Bitwarden for a few months now. The form-filling feature doesn’t always get it right (e.g. the credit card number field on Oztix never works). But since it’s open source, I could look into the form-filling code; unfortunately, it was pretty much trash. Maybe I’ll get around to submitting a rewrite one day. I’d hope the rest of the code is better. But regardless, altogether, I am extremely happy with Bitwarden and its boundless feature set. I would highly recommend it, especially for the low low price of free! The free plan has satisfied all my needs, so to show my support for their efforts and generosity, I’ve just unnecessarily subscribed for a year for USD $10 =)