Password generator - a few issues
I have a few issues with the 1Password generator.
First, let me start with a picture of it on the iPhone.
1. Why is the length restricted to 30 characters?
Is there a technical reason that the length of generated passwords on iOS is restricted to 30 characters. For me, I think that could be longer. Usually I use longer passwords if the website allows them. Please allow longer passwords, at least 50 characters.
2. Number of digits or symbols
In the current implementation a user can not see how many digits or symbols the generated password will have. I think you should inform the user. You could display the number count similar to the length count on the right hand side of the slider element.
3. No support of diceware passwords
Personally, I do not use them but it would be nice to have the possibility to generate them on iOS as well.
4. Content of symbols is not adjustable
That issue I have also with the password generators in the various browser plugins and 1Password for Windows. The content of symbols is not adjustable. It would be great if you find a possibility for the user to
a) see the range of symbols from which the generator will randomly choose its symbols and
b) allow in rare cases the user to modify the symbol range (exclude some or allow only some of them).
A lot of web sites have really strange rules how long and what characters a password can contain. Especially on sites that only allow short passwords (e.g. 15 characters) and only a few symbols (e.g. ,.:/+-) would the use of symbols enhance the quality of the generated short password. At the moment 1Password will choose various symbols and therefore it is likely that the generated password will not pass the rules of the web site. If you find that point useful than I would recommend to change that on the other 1Password implementations as well (browser plugins first).
5.Strange localisation effect
Okay, that is probably not an issue of the password generator. My iOS device has as default language German. In 1Password I selected English as interface language. Despite that are various elements still in German. If you look at the screen shot you will see that "Cancel" and "Okay" (I do not know what you use for "Fertig" in English) are still in German. Also if I select a password the "copy" command is in German and shows "Kopiere". Overall I think that is a strange language mix and should be avoided if you allow the user to chose the interface language. Nevertheless, I like the approach that a user can choose the interface language.
Comments
-
Great feedback, @dahanbn. I will answer them point by point:
- I need to check with the rest of the team and get back to you with an answer.
- We decided to go with a simpler implementation here rather than showing exactly how many digits and symbols were being added to the password.
- We've had other requests for diceware passwords, I will add your vote for them as well.
- We are striving for simplicity and power in our password generator. We have found that 99% of the time we cover the restrictions set forth by various websites. For the other 1% we do allow the generated password to manually edited.
- We are aware of this issue and discussing ways to mitigate it.
Thanks!
0 -
Glad I found this thread. I wanted to ask about item #4 from @dahanbn as well.
A few passwords that I have created recently have run into the same issue of specific restrictions from the website, which don't really make sense. But nevertheless, only certain non alphanumeric characters are allowed. I see that it is possible to edit the password once it has been generated, to exclude the non-allowed characters, but choosing in advance the characters that can or can't be included would be a nice feature.
Thanks.
0 -
Hi guys,
I'm not sure how we can present the interface to exclude or rather include symbols but we'll see what we can do.
Thanks for bringing this up with us.
0
