Widget to faster copy/paste username/password

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admxnl
admxnl
Community Member

Could you please consider building a widget for Android to copy fields (username/password) from 1Password to other applications.

The 1Password keyboard is no options because I miss features (swype) and certain characters in it, switching keyboard is too much of a hassle on my phone.

I currently open the note widget and first paste information to a (insecure) note and then copy it to the application I need it in. The advantage of the note widget is that it floats on top of other apps, I guess you could do the same with an 1Password widget.


1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided

Comments

  • One of the reasons why we went with the 1Password Keyboard approach is to avoid using the shared clipboard on the Android system. We discussed previously in length how an app or service can easily snoop the clipboard without requiring special permissions, and we feel strongly to give our users the best possible solution.

    Your suggestion is one of the first approaches we took, and we even published it into a beta. Unfortunately, it had many limitations for detecting and filling logins. For example, we were not able to fill into apps that used a built-in webview. It also required us to limit the feature to users running Lollipop and higher in order to avoid the shared clipboard.

    We appreciate hearing your use case with 1Password, and its something I will share with the team. I understand there is a good balance between security and convenience, and the balance is not always easy to find. Perhaps another time, we may consider revisiting this approach.

    Thanks. Let us know if you have any questions.

  • admxnl
    admxnl
    Community Member
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    You could built in a warning that my password can be intercepted by another app or service? Now I take even more risk by copying my password to a note and back to another app.

    You mention detecting and filling logins, I don't think this is necessary for the widget. I only need to copy/paste some passwords that cannot be filled in correctly in the 1password browser. Most logins work correctly though.

    Isn't the copy/paste risk the same on a Windows machine? This clipboard could be intercepted by other programs or services as well and you still offer to copy the password to it?

    I think convenience predominates the security issue in this case. You cannot prevent every scenario in which other malicious programs/apps copy (steal) passwords.

  • The 1Password browser extension on Windows does not use the clipboard, it uses web sockets to communicate with the main application. 1Password for Windows also offers a feature called Auto-Type that will automatically type in your credential in the selected application.

    The purpose of the 1Password keyboard on Android is very much similar. It automatically detects and fills the username and password fields of a selected login item in an external application or browser. Of course, as you mentioned, if you like to copy a certain value, we don’t prevent you from doing so on Windows. Just like 1Password on Android, you can open an item and explicitly tap to copy the value you like.

    After reading your post again, I think I have a better understanding of what you are looking for. I don’t think you are looking to replace the 1Password keyboard, instead you are looking for a completely new feature. But that gets me thinking, why not copy the username and password from the 1Password app instead?

  • admxnl
    admxnl
    Community Member
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    The 1Password keyboard is not the answer for me, it's US oriented and doesn't support swype. Switching keyboards is a hell on Android.

    I don't think the copy function from the app is the solution either because switching apps on Android often make them restart from scratch or reset the login fields thus deleting my previous entered username or password. Especially the Chrome app loads pages again when going back to the app and thus deleting any entered data on the visited website.

    A floating app (widget) would be the solution because data can be copied without leaving the actual app your entering data in.

  • Thanks for the feedback, @admxnl. I'll forward your suggestion to our developers for their consideration. We'd certainly like to improve filling on Android in the future. :)

    Let us know if you have any other suggestions or requests!

  • DoctorBrown
    DoctorBrown
    Community Member
    edited January 2016
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    I'd like to second the comment that the 1Password Keyboard and 1Password browser approach is a PITA on the Android (and iOS for that matter). I have a Droid Maxx and it doesn't have lollipop and may or may not get it. If I had realized that the interface to the native and other full featured 3rd party browsers and Apps was this awkward, I would have had second thoughts of going all in for this password manager. Other password managers have solved these issues. I hope AgileBits does also, SOON. I certainly will caution other people who are looking for a PW solution about these issues.

    I would put the fill interface to browsers and apps as a top priority over other wiz bang features (including Teams, for example). If the fundamentals are difficult to use, the product is seriously flawed.

  • DoctorBrown
    DoctorBrown
    Community Member
    edited January 2016
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    After thinking about this for awhile, I may have to modify my perception.

    Other password managers have solved these issues.

    Since I don't know, in general, how the data gets from the PW Mgrs to the app or web fields, I don't know if the methods used by other managers are more or less secure than those chosen by Agilebits. Although ease of use is an important consideration for me and many users.

  • peri
    edited January 2016
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    Hi @DoctorBrown. I am also not certain how other password managers handle filling, but I do know that our goal was to create a secure way to fill into apps and sites without using the clipboard. Just to be clear, Lollipop isn't required for filling using the keyboard and accessibility service. You should be able to fill using any OS 4.0 or later.

    That said, we do not that the keyboard isn't the perfect solution as it is, and we're considering ways to improve filling. I'll forward your comments to the developers.

    Let u know if you have any other feedback!

  • DoctorBrown
    DoctorBrown
    Community Member
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    Just to be clear, Lollipop isn't required for filling using the keyboard and accessibility service.

    I understand that I can fill on OS 4.x using the 1P keyboard. But, it is my understanding from the article link above, lollipop is required to use the beta version (and I assume future releases) that doesn't use the clipboard. It is my hope that once you can bypass the clipboard, the 1P Keyboard will not be needed anymore.

    It is the requirement to use the 1P Keyboard for filling that I find really frustrating .

  • peri
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    Ah, I see. Sorry for the confusion! I assume that you're referring to this article that Saad linked in an earlier post.

    To clarify, the filling implementation described there didn't actually ship. We tested it out in beta for a while, but came to realize that it had a large number of problems and limitations that were simply unfixable, along with only being available on Android 5.0 and later. After revisiting our options, we decided to go with the keyboard and accessibility service, which is available to a larger number of people (namely those who aren't yet on Lollipop or later), and which allows for filling in more places.

  • bezhermoso
    bezhermoso
    Community Member
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    I found this thread because I am also experiencing some frustration with 1Password only being able to fill fields with its bundled keyboard.

    I know a "better", seamless filling implementation didn't ship due to issues and because of the fact that it requires Android 5.0 and up, but now that Lollipop has gained greater adaptation, is it back on the board?

    I came across Texpand (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.isaiasmatewos.texpand&hl=en) a couple of weeks ago and I'm really impressed by its responsiveness, and it leaves me wanting a similar, just as convenient experience for 1Password even more.

  • peri
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    Thanks for getting in touch, @bezhermoso. To be clear, our goal with filling has been to avoid automatically copying to the clipboard, since the clipboard is vulnerable to sniffing. We'd hate to put your sensitive information in a place where it could be accessed by other apps.

    That said, we do hope to revisit filling in the future. We don't have plans to go back to the filling implementation we briefly tested last year, as it didn't work more often than not. However, we will reassess to see if there's something we could do to improve filling on Android. Thanks for your input! :)

  • bezhermoso
    bezhermoso
    Community Member
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    Looks like a proper Autofill API is coming with Android O: https://developer.android.com/preview/features/autofill.html

    I'm excited to see what 1Password will do with it. :)

  • peri
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    It's pretty exciting, indeed @bezhermoso. My team plans to work closely with Google to bring Open YOLO to 1Password on Android.

This discussion has been closed.