Newbie Questions about 1Password program and extension

Hi @NeedStraightAnswers,

Thanks for writing in and we'd be happy to help.

We want 1Password to be intuitive to use but there are a lot of rough areas that we need to improve for sure.

Can you use just the 1Password Windows desktop program and still have it work with Google Chrome or do you need to install the 1Password extension (which would slow down my already slow computer)?

The 1Password extension wouldn't slow down your computer, it's very lightweight and doesn't have any UI or data. What it does is integrate with the website, so that it can talk to the running 1Password program on your computer to show you the UI with your data for filling or for saving.

The 1Password extension is required, you can omit the 1Password extension and just copy/paste but the extension will help you a lot.

There is another extension we're working on called 1Password X, in this case, it's a self-contained extension where it does show its own UI and database and does not require 1Password desktop program to be installed. It's currently designed to be used on Chromebooks and Linux machines where we don't have a native program.

It seems that I have to log into the Chrome extension and the Windows desktop program separately every time I turn on my computer. Is this normal or is my antivirus program or another program interfering with the 1Password program?

The 1Password mini and 1Password program are the same, there is no separate locking system. Did you maybe install 1Password X instead?

I enabled "Enable Native Messaging for Chrome" in Options. I also enabled "Enable local WebSocket". Is this wrong. Should I only enable native messaging?

We've removed the legacy WebSocket support in today's 1Password 6.8 update. I'd suggest updating and you won't have that option anymore.

Native Messaging is the only thing you need to use.

Will the next version of 1Password have the ability to store passwords only on the local computer?

Yes, 1Password 7 is in development right now to add support for standalone vaults and licensing.

If so, how far away is the next version approximately? (eg. 1 year vs 10 years)

As per our policy, we don't share timeframes as we ship when we are ready, we don't hold back features just for the sake of it.

What I can tell you is that 1Password 7 will not be that far away and definitely not a year or ten years away.

Does using only the Windows desktop program remove my password from 1Password servers?

No. When 1Password 7 for Windows is released, you can choose between standalone vaults and 1Password.com accounts. You can even share data between both if you wish. You can choose to stay with standalone vaults only and delete your 1Password account as well. We will give you that option.

Just to be clear, 1Password X extension requires 1Password.com account because it communicates with your 1Password data stored on our servers. That's why it doesn't require the desktop program running whereas the regular 1Password extensions do.

For standalone vaults, the regular 1Password extensions are required.

Hi @NeedStraightAnswers,

Say if I set it so that 1Password logs me out autmatically after 30 minutes of inactivity, what does inactivity mean? For example, will I get logged out for example if I am watching a movie for 30 minutes?

Inactivity means no activity from user input such as mouse and keyboard moving. So, in your example if you are not using your keyboard and mouse while watching the movie for 30 minutes, yes, 1Password will auto-lock in the background.

Can I also make some suggestions that would make improve things immensely?

Absolutely!

1Password doesn't do this smoothly. eg I'm afraid the wrong password got saved so i always go back and check. Moreover the register website is frequently different than the later login website, so the later is the one that should be saved, not the register url

I'm sorry to hear that 1Password isn't doing this smoothly. Can you be clear as to what the wrong password is, are we talking about you changing the password on the site's form and 1Password saved the old password instead of the new one?

I've never had 1Password autosave the wrong password for me, it only saves what you've entered on the site. Can you clarify which sites this happened on, so we can test and see what's going on.

Moreover the register website is frequently different than the later login website, so the later is the one that should be saved, not the register url. I think it would make a huge impact with customers if 1Password made this process so much easier. No other program does this and it's a huge task that people do all the time.

There's a rule we abide to, never ever modify or change how the user use their data, it's not ours to touch. The problem with improving this specific area, is that:

1. We can't modify the saved record to simplify this (changing the saved URL). Not all sites have the same URL structure nor do they use "registration" in their URL path. Not to mention international sites are different as well.
2. Prompting user to update the Login item again when they're signing in from a different URL can be prone to false positives and be more annoying.
3. We can't just randomly take the user to a different URL that may not have the sign-in form and than have 1Password randomly fill it.
4. There are folks that intentionally save 1Password on a registration form (lottery type of forms) where they use 1Password to fill in the saved data daily to simplify the form submission.
5. It has to be clear what 1Password is about to do

We are looking into the idea of making 1Password smarter by adding the history of the last five unique URLs of where 1Password fills for that specific item, so that you can open it. It wouldn't modify your items but that way, 1Password can make a suggestion and you can click a specific address to update the main Login item with.

Sometimes, websites that I am about to register to has a url that isn't the same url as the one saved in the 1password entry.

One thing that a lot of power users do is not allow 1Password auto-save on the registration form. 1Password automatically saves a copy of the Password item when you generate a new password. So, what users do is skip the auto-save, go find the login page and then fill the password in and then login, 1Password will prompt to save and you'll have a clean Login item.

But if the password generator just pops up and stays on top but then loses focuses when everything turns out ok (triggered by the final saving/closing of the entry), that would be so much less time consuming.

We plan to add an anchor button to the Strong Password Generator dialog, so that you can keep it up when you are not sure about the password requirements.