Announced only in April this year, Proton Pass is already out of beta and is now available for everyone to download and use – for free. The Swiss company’s bold aim is that Pass will become the most popular free password manager around.
Proton Pass is Out of Beta And Available to Everyone For Free
Announced as recently as April, Proton Pass is already out of beta and is now available to everyone for free. The company’s bold aim is that Pass will become the most popular free password manager around.
It worked with SimpleLogin to develop Pass, which is available for Android and iOS, of course, and as a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox. Chromium browsers such as Brave and Edge are also supported. That covers the majority of people, but does leave a few other browsers out in the cold: Safari in particular. Proton told us that it was
However, Proton Pass is an appealing option for a variety of reasons. One is Proton’s unwavering dedication to privacy, the central pillar of all the company’s products including its email, cloud storage and VPN services.
That means there are a couple of great extra features. One is the option to create a ‘hide-my-email’ alias when signing up for online accounts. This is similar to what iCloud+ subscribers benefit from: a randomly generated email address that sits between any online service and your real email account (which doesn’t have to be a Proton one).
This stops third parties from identifying you and also filters out trackers before forwarding incoming emails to your real email account, which really hampers attempts to build a more detailed profiles on where you shop, what you buy, what you like and what you do.
It also means that if you ever want to stop getting emails from a certain company, you can just delete the email alias associated with that account and it will have no way of contacting you. Plus, with 75% of cyberattacks beginning with an email address, according to Proton, it also protects your identity that way too.
The other key feature is more to do with security than privacy. Proton Pass doesn’t just protect passwords using end-to-end encryption, which is where some password managers stop. It also applies that to all credentials including email addresses, usernames, notes and even metadata. You can read more about how Pass’s security works on Proton’s blog.
Proton says that Pass has audited by a third party, but the report hasn’t yet been published – expect that in the coming weeks. Like all Proton products, Pass is open source so anyone who wants to can inspect the code.
Proton
As you’d expect from a good password manager, Pass will auto-fill logins on websites and in apps, and has a password generator so you don’t have to even think about another strong password for a new account.
Although free, there’s the option to pay for Proton Pass and get extra features. They include unlimited email aliases (instead of 10), 20 vaults (instead of 1), unlimited 2FA logins (instead of 3) and the ability to auto-fill custom fields.
And to celebrate the launch, there are big discounts on Proton Pass one- and two-year plans for those that don’t already pay for Proton’s Unlimited, Family Plan or Visionary tiers.
These cost $1 per month – $12 for one year and $24 for two years – which is an 80% discount compared the normal monthly price of Proton Pass. Better still, you’ll continue to get the same discount if you choose to renew when the subscription expires.
The offer lasts for a month (it ends on 27 July) so there’s a bit of time to decide if you want those extra features. After that, prices will be $2.99 per month for the two-year plan and $3.99 per month for the one-year.
Both are billed up front, not monthly.
Related stories
