9mo ago

Android makes me (almost) hate using a password manager – Google needs to fix it

9to5google.com

Android has had an autofill feature for password managers for years now, but it's broken and needs to be fixed.

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9mo ago

Android makes me (almost) hate using a password manager – Google needs to fix it

9to5google.com /2024/10/06/android-autofill-password-manager-problems/

28 comments

Yeah, it's really a mystery to me how this can be so inconsistent across providers. With one app I have to click a separate button/dropdown-thingy and another fills the username and password in directly.
- And on top of that Google's own password manager which I had deactivated managed to weasel itself into the foreground on my kid's phone. It was a pain to deactivate it again.
  
  Never had that happen actually
- For me I just have to click on the entry, if the KeePass DB is unlocked. Otherwise I click on the "KeePass2Android" entry, it opens the app, I unlock it and it either autofills or I just then finally click the entry.
  
  As it should be. But for some inane reason it works differently for other apps.
I dunno, I use Bitwarden and Firefox on Android so pretty none mainstream and don't have any of the issues this clown does. Seems like a click bait article for the sake of it.
- Bitwarden works well in every app and browser I've tried.
  
  My banking apps lock screens consistently aren't recognized by Bitwarden Android.
  Some websites/apps only show the email field at first, then add the password field afterwards. This also sometimes makes it not being detected as a login form.
  Sometimes a password field is detected only on the first filling in (which is annoying when choosing the wrong entry).
  On desktop it's great, but I really don't know why some apps have to do custom login screens.
- That’s because Bitwarden used various methods to enable auto-fill in places where the native auto-fill capability of Android doesn’t work. See https://bitwarden.com/help/auto-fill-android/ for an explanation.
- Same setup, and its largely fine, but about 5-10% of the time bitwarden/keyboard will fail to show the password auto complete buttons, and I'll have to copy paste manually, or restart Firefox. Really annoying, albeit rare.
- Agreed... depending on Google to implement or fix very specific features is just shouting into the void. Use a trusted 3rd party app like Bitwarden, as you mentioned
- +1 from me as well. I almost never have issues with Bitwarden. And when I do its usually in apps that don't allow autofill in a normalish way. So I'm not sure thays really Google's or Bitwarden's fault, but the app developers...
- Yeah, I had this sort of experience back with LastPass, but Bitwarden works beautifully for me.
  There's a potentially valid criticism if that occurs because iOS's mechanism is robust to poorly implemented password managers and Android's isn't, but that's also not the criticism being provided here.
- Mixed experiences beyond firefox with bitwarden. But they are usually minuscule.
I mean in their defense, apps really ought to have "normal" log-in screens. Providers working around that feels like a bandaid instead of a fix.
Imagine it gets fixed but only in Google Autofill and not Android auto fill
That’s one thing I do like about iOS, there’s a secrets manager API and you can use their default keychain, or a 3rd party app like bitwarden and they all interface the same.
Dunno whats the issue.
I use bitwarden and it was a bit inconsistent with gboard.
Currently using Futo keyboard and I get a convenient bitwarden widget/shortcut in my keyboard quick access bar (dunno what they call it).
Just in some situations it doesnt auto-pop up and it doesnt ask if I want to save a password on Android (Version 14 - Pixel 7 Pro)
- Trying Futo now, but I can't find the Bitwarden thing you mention. Any setting I have to enable?
  
  That's the pop-up I mean:
  
  My keyboard settings:
Forget all the password managers, just make all your passwords the same thing. You can use your middle name and your phone number, maybe throw a # in there to make it super secure.
I have the password manager set to show as a drop-down below the password blank itself rather than in a bar above the keyboard and it seems to work pretty well
- I'd like to try that. How do you get to that settings?
  
  After checking it seems to be within the password manager I use, 1password's settings, but I think? Bitwarden has a similar setting

28 comments