The popular password manager was free on computers but pay-to-play on phones and tablets, but you can now use it for free to protect your accounts on all devices.
By now, we should all know the importance of using strong passwords that aren’t easy to guess, and that passwords shouldn’t be reused for different services.
Simple passwords are relatively easy to guess, and if the bad guys manage to get your password for one account (perhaps by phishing) they’ll try it with other popular services.
Unless you’re blessed with an unusually good memory, the likely answer to this problem is to adopt a password manager – and LogMeIn’s LastPass is one of the more popular tools available. It remembers as many strong passwords as you need (and can generate them for you), automatically entering them when necessary.
All those passwords are stored in encrypted form, protected by a master password. Since that’s the only one you need to remember, you can afford to make it really complex.
The problem with some password managers is that they are restricted to certain platforms or require payment before they can be used on all your devices. The latter used to be the case with LastPass, but the free edition can now be used with all your devices. That applies to existing and new users.
“Today’s reality is that people’s digital lives are increasingly in the cloud – and inherently span countless personal and work devices. We believe that to truly benefit from the security and convenience of a password manager, it should be available whenever and wherever you need it,” said LastPass vice president and general manager Joe Siegrist.
“By offering LastPass for free across all your devices, we're making it that much easier for everyone to make good password habits the norm, while resetting the expectations of what a great password management experience should be in a multi-device world. Because when you have a password manager that goes everywhere you do, you have a strong foundation for securing and managing your identity.”
LastPass works with “Firefox, Chrome, Safari, IE and Opera, on every major platform”, according to the company.
LastPass Premium costs $US12 a year, and includes “family sharing” for up to five users, support for YubiKey and Sesame two-factor authentication, 1GB of encrypted file storage, and other benefits.
There’s also an enterprise plan that adds centralised administration, single sign-on, Active Directory support, and more. Annual charges start at $US24 a user, and a free trial is available.
