LastPass goes free on mobiles
But you'll still need a premium account to sync passwords from your PC
Password manager LastPass has made access to its mobile apps free, giving smartphone users one fewer excuse to use the same password on every site they visit. LastPass previously required users to sign up for a premium account to use its app on mobiles, but it has now lowered the barrier to entry.
LastPass is one of the best known password managers, creating an encrypted store of all your website logins so that you don’t need to remember the username and password for every site you visit. Its password generator also creates strong passwords that are automatically saved into your vault and auto-filled every time you visit the site in question.
The company’s new policy means you can now install the LastPass app on iOS, Android or Windows Phone devices and synchronises passwords between your mobiles. However, if you want to sycnhronise passwords between desktop and smartphone, you will still need to pay for the premium account.
The company says it’s making the change to help out “mobile-only users who need help managing their passwords and apps”. However, the pull of cross-device synchronisation will doubtless be used to upsell mobile users to paid-for accounts. It gives a 14-day free trial of full sync to tempt you further.
LastPass has had a couple of serious security scares in recent times. In June, the company admitted its servers had been breached for a second time in four years, prompting the company to reset users’ master passwords. However, due to the way the password vaults are securely encrypted, there was no evidence that users’ logins had been breached.