What Is LastPass? Password Manager Review
What Is LastPass? Password Manager Review
If you can, try to think of your most commonly used accounts. If you’re anything like most people, it’ll probably be your social media and email accounts. Past these, however, the chances are that you’ll have a fairly hard time trying to remember all of your other accounts.
From all of the various email accounts you have to the different passwords for each account, it’s hard to remember more than a handful of login credentials.
Password managers are a relatively recent innovation and they’ve made it a lot easier to manage and memorize passwords. There are a number of good password managers on the market (as well as some less than satisfactory ones). LastPass happens to be one of the better ones!
In today’s post, we’re going to give you our LastPass review. We’ll start by explaining how it works and go over some of its top features. Then, we’ll show you how much LastPass costs and offer our final verdict.
If you’ve been looking for an affordable, high-quality password manager, then this review is definitely worth reading over! When used in correlation with a reputable VPN like one of these, LastPass will help ensure that your login credentials never fall into the wrong hands.
How Does LastPass Work?
LastPass is a password manager that’s designed to store all of your passwords in a secure password-locked vault. The advantage of this (and most other password managers, for that matter) is that you’ll no longer have to worry about memorizing all of your various passwords. Instead, you’ll just need to remember one; the password to the password manager.
If you’ve just downloaded LastPass, you’ll be prompted to create an account using your email address. Then, you’ll create a secure password that you’ll use to access the account. After verifying your email, you’ll be able to manually enter any password and username pair into the vault.
LastPass can be used to store more than just passwords, too. You’ll be able to store:
- Passwords and usernames.
- Credit and debit card numbers.
- Secure, encrypted notes.
- Bank account logins.
- Drivers licenses and ID cards.
- Addresses.
So, pretty much any sensitive or personal data you may have, you’ll be able to store it securely in LastPass.
Is LastPass Secure?
Yes! LastPass is incredibly secure. It uses military-grade AES encryption to secure your password and all of the data stored in your vault. If you’ve never heard of AES before, just know it’s the same encryption protocol that the CIA and NSA use to secure their data. Simply put, it’s virtually impossible to hack, even with highly advanced brute force hacking software.
Additionally, LastPass utilizes a zero-knowledge data security model. This means that nobody other than you will be able to read the data in your vault; not even the people at LastPass!
This means that even if LastPass was ever hacked or penetrated, the hackers wouldn’t be able to get any personal data on its users’ vaults. LastPass accomplishes this by combining hashing algorithms with encryption to ensure that your data is stored in random, uncrackable hash codes that aren’t able to be reversed into their original form.
Literally, the only way that anybody can view your vault is if they log in using your email address and password. Even then, they would still have to pass through the multi-factor authentication process, which would be impossible unless they had your phone and your fingerprint in hand.
Does LastPass Have A Free Version?
Yes! In fact, LastPass is one of the few high-quality password managers that offers a free version. The only other free password manager (that’s actually worth anything) we can think of at the moment is Bitwarden.
With a free account, users will be able to create a LastPass account that works on one device. If you want to use LastPass across different platforms (e.g., your phone, laptop, and tablet), you’ll need a premium account.
With the free version of LastPass, you’ll get access to the following features:
- Secure, encrypted password vault.
- Ability to store secured notes.
- Password generator and password health checker.
- Secure, one-to-one password sharing.
- Multi-factor authentication, ensuring smooth but ultra-secure login.
- Basic customer/tech support.
See? Maintaining your online security doesn’t have to be expensive. Although paid programs certainly offer some nice extras, you can remain pretty darn secure with a free password manager, free anti-virus software, and a low-cost VPN.
LastPass Top Features
Here’s a short breakdown of LastPass’s top features. While some of these features require a premium paid account, most of them are available with a free LastPass account.
- Organized Credential Storage (free): One thing we really like about LastPass is that it allows you to separate the passwords and info stored in your vault. Unlike other popular password managers, you’ll be able to separate data into designated folders for passwords, notes, addresses, payment info, etc.
- Dark Web Account Monitoring (premium): With a premium account, LastPass will monitor the dark web for any of your email addresses or associated accounts that may have become compromised and are being sold to scammerrs. It will notify you so that you can change your passwords ASAP and prevent a possible hacking attempt.
- Password Risk Management (free): LastPass scans all of your stored passwords to identify weak passwords that should be updated and improved for more security.
- Password Generator (free): LastPass offers a free password generator so you’ll never have to worry about coming up with secure passwords on your own again.
- Multi-Factor Authentication (free): Multi-factor authentication lets you log in to your account by tapping a button or scanning your fingerprint on your phone or laptop. This is a lot faster than traditional two-factor authentication and means that even if a hacker does get their hands on your LastPass password, that they won’t be able to access your account.
- Emergency Access (premium): With a premium account, you’ll be able to give emergency access to a chosen individual of your choice. This means that if the worst happens, your spouse, lawyer, or whoever your chosen trusted individual is can access your account and passwords.
How Much Does LastPass Cost?
LastPass is very affordable for what it offers! Here’s a brief overview of its pricing structure.
Personal Accounts
As we mentioned, LastPass offers a free account for individual users. However, if you want to take advantage of extra features, you can pay $3/month for a basic premium plan or $4/month for a family premium plan that allows your whole family to access the password vault.
Business Accounts
If you manage a team or a business, you may want to create a LastPass vault that stores all of the commonly shared passwords that your business uses. For smaller teams, you can purchase a team LastPass account and pay $4/user/month. If you have a larger business and need advanced security features, you can purchase a LastPass business account and pay $6/user/month.
In Conclusion
As you can see, LastPass offers a lot in return for a small monthly fee. If you’re still unsure about it, we recommend starting with a free account to see how you like it. If the need ever arises, you can always upgrade your account!
Although LastPass is a great tool to help you manage your passwords and keep your login credentials secure, it’s not a solve-all solution. For total internet security and anonymity online, you’ll want to use LastPass alongside a fast, high-quality VPN to encrypt your browsing activities and a performance anti-virus/anti-malware program to protect your device itself.
We hope you enjoyed this LastPass review! Until next time, stay safe and stay anonymous…
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