RoboForm password manager review
Our Verdict
RoboForm doesn't offer much more than than the basics of password management and form filling, but it does them well for a bargain price.
For
- Robust course filling
- Affordable premium tier
- Attractive website and mobile apps
Against
- Unintuitive design for standalone app
- Non feature-competitive with top options
Tom's Guide Verdict
RoboForm doesn't offer much more than the basics of countersign management and grade filling, but it does them well for a deal price.
Pros
- +
Robust form filling
- +
Affordable premium tier
- +
Bonny website and mobile apps
Cons
- -
Unintuitive design for standalone app
- -
Not feature-competitive with top options
RoboForm password manager specs
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Android, iOS apps; Linux, Chrome Bone via browser extensions
Gratuitous-version limitations: Single device; no 2FA
2FA: Yes
Browser plugins: Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari
Form filling: Yes
Mobile Pivot unlock: Yeah
Biometric login: Face ID, Touch on ID on iOS & macOS, Windows Hello, Pixel Confront Unlock, most Android fingerprint readers
RoboForm is one of the oldest password managers out there, and after 20 years remains a solid competitor in the marketplace.
RoboForm has raised its yearly subscription toll since we terminal reviewed the service, to $24/twelvemonth from $20/year, simply other countersign managers have too, and RoboForm remains one of the cheaper paid options among the all-time password managers.
The standalone desktop app remains a poor experience on RoboForm, but the website interface, mobile apps and browser extensions take gone through a pregnant redesign that gives the service a much more modern feel. RoboForm still remains among the all-time at form-filling.
Overall, RoboForm's paid plan is no-nonsense and effective and volition manage your passwords and personal information without much flash or fuss. It doesn't offering much more than the Bitwarden free tier, and you can get newer features with the Keeper paid plan, merely RoboForm is a dependable pick that shouldn't disappoint you.
Roboform: Costs and what's covered
RoboForm offers a free tier and a paid subscription called RoboForm Everywhere. The latter is one of the cheaper paid offerings among password managers at $23.88 per year for a single user. You can bring downward that price by ten% with a three-year plan ($64.44) or by 16% with a five-twelvemonth program ($99.50).
A family of upward to five users can exist covered for $47.75 a year. Again, you lot can save 10% with a three-twelvemonth plan ($128.85) or 16% with a v-year plan ($199.00). At the time of this writing, Tom's Guide readers got a 30% discount off the one-year individual and family plans.
RoboForm has a reasonably skilful free tier, with the ability to salve unlimited passwords, generate strong passwords, autofill web forms, audit your passwords and be alerted of compromised ones, send passwords securely, receive emergency access to another RoboForm user's account, log in to desktop applications and manage bookmarks.
The biggest advantage of paid accounts is the ability to sync your passwords and other items across all of your devices, which is crucial for virtually users.
Additional perks for paying users include cloud fill-in, a secured shared folder, 2-factor authentication (2FA) support, the ability to grant emergency access to another RoboForm user, web access to your information and priority 24/7 support. Virtually recently, in January 2022, it added a 2FA authenticator/code generator to its desktop apps, and the characteristic is coming soon to the RoboForm mobile apps.
RoboForm still offers a local-only storage selection, a valuable choice for users who don't wish to, or are not allowed to, store their data in the deject. Enabling it simply requires turning off automatic sync. Just be enlightened that the mobile apps lack the ability to turn off automated syncing.
Support for Windows goes all the fashion back to Vista. The Windows universal installer will add together browser extensions to Microsoft Cyberspace Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Border, Opera and Windows applications.
There's also a standalone extension for the Chromium-based version of Edge that has "limited functionality", although RoboForm rolled out updated versions of the browser extensions in March 2021.
Mac users must exist running macOS 10.13 High Sierra or later on, and the Mac installer includes browser extensions for Apple Safari, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
RoboForm offers similarly all-encompassing support on mobile, going all the way back to iOS 12 and Android devices running Android 5 Lollipop. Linux users have standalone extensions available for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Chrome Os is supported via the Google Chrome browser extension.
For this review, I used RoboForm on a 2017 MacBook Pro 15 running Windows 10 and macOS x.14 Mojave, an iPhone seven Plus, and a Google Pixel 3. Google Chrome was my primary browser across all platforms merely testing on macOS and iOS was besides done with Safari.
RoboForm: Setup
To go started, only navigate to the RoboForm downloads page. It will recognize the device that yous are browsing from and recommend the correct version. The universal installer for macOS and Windows will also install the full-featured browser extensions for all supported browsers.
Now you need to create your account, which requires just an email address and a master countersign. RoboForm requires that the master password be at least 8 characters long with a minimum of iv non-numeric characters. As with most countersign managers, at that place is no way to recover this master password if you lose information technology.
If you were already using another method of password management, either in your browser or with another stand up-alone password managing director, yous should import your data.
RoboForm supports imports from 1Password, Dashlane, LastPass, NIS, Xmarks, KeePass, Keeper, Enpass, Password Dominate, Zoho Vault, Truthful Key and Sticky Countersign, as well as generic CSV files. It will besides import from any browser that supports the RoboForm extension on that platform.
Finally, you tin install RoboForm on the residual of your devices and your data volition immediately sync between them as soon as you lot enter your RoboForm master password.
RoboForm on the desktop
RoboForm gives you four unlike ways to admission your account on the desktop: the standalone app, the browser extension, the carte bar and the website. The functionality is largely the same among the 4, which is an improvement; the last time I reviewed Roboform, the website was a read-merely feel.
The standalone desktop app has the worst user interface and user feel of the iv. There is null to it visually, with just the eight sections of the app displayed in the left column. If you click on a section, you lot become two additional columns with the relevant data to the right. The Security Center is the lone exception, every bit information technology has a slightly more modern tabbed interface.
The standalone app is both sparse and often disruptive, every bit there are few explanations for even the relatively limited features of the app. The power to unlock the RoboForm desktop app using Impact ID on a Mac is squeamish, simply until RoboForm modernizes the interface, you will be all-time served by ignoring the standalone app whenever possible and interacting with the service through any of the other three options.
The website interface is quite well washed, with a modernistic interface at the top level that is far easier to utilize than the desktop app. All the of import sections of the app are attainable here. While things go a little less pretty when you drill down — pop-upwardly menus for adding new items look dated — everything worked as expected.
Ane thing you cannot do in the web app, or in the standalone app for that affair, is generate a new password. That must be done via the menu bar or extension. The countersign generator works very well and offers extensive options to tweak the characteristics of the password, then I just don't understand why RoboForm fails to make it bachelor everywhere.
Likewise, generation of i-fourth dimension-utilise 2FA codes must be done in the RoboForm browser extension.
Identities is where you add personal information used to auto-fill class fields. It includes fields that show RoboForm'southward age, such every bit "AOL Name" and "Pager," only the form-filling itself works well.
The Contacts section in RoboForm seems out of place, and it's so rudimentary that I can't imagine anyone using information technology. The Safenotes makes more sense, equally many people would desire some encrypted text, simply turning this section into safe storage for whatever kind of file would vastly increase its utility.
Emergency Access lets you designate a friend or family member, using their email address, as someone who volition be given access to your account in the event that you cannot access the business relationship. You cull how long the Emergency Access contact needs to wait before getting access, and you lot can deny their access should you regain yours during that waiting menstruum.
While the use case for Emergency Access is if you lot are either incapacitated or dead, information technology is also a potential lifesaver should you forget your master password. Like the password generator, Emergency Access is oddly obscured in the RoboForm interface, with the menu bar being the merely way to access it.
Security Center is the final section. It audits the security level of your passwords and singles out any reused passwords. In May 2021, it began importing lists of compromised passwords from Have I Been Pwned, a not-profit online tracker of passwords and email addresses exposed in information breaches.
Side by side to every compromised password, RoboForm provides a link to the website in question so that you can speedily log in and alter the password.
RoboForm calculates countersign strength using the open up-source tool Zxcvbn, which detracts points for dictionary entries, mutual names and common passwords. This is different from the quotas for lowercase letters, majuscule messages, digits and symbols (LUDS) that most countersign-force estimators rely on. RoboForm claims Zxcvbn offers a more accurate depiction of how hard information technology would be to crack a given countersign.
RoboForm mobile apps
RoboForm has massively overhauled its mobile apps since the terminal time I reviewed them, and the apps now have a make clean, modern look. Nigh everything from the desktop interface has made its way to mobile, and course-filling is at present supported on both iOS and Android, making for a much more complete feel.
The apps, which are nearly identical between iOS and Android, display the 4 main sections across the bottom of the screen with Start, ID, Browser and Tools.
Past default, yous launch into the pinned department of the Showtime screen. You can pin any detail in your vault here by just long-pressing it and tapping "pivot." The other three sections in Get-go are Logins, Safenotes and All.
Everything is displayed in a filigree view, with logos for websites when available. You can switch to a list view that puts logos on the left and text to the right. Tapping on a login volition log you into that site immediately.
The next section is ID, which contains all the content you would find in Identities on the desktop. It displays total-width rectangular grids with singled-out graphics for the data types. If you have multiple identities gear up, yous tin switch between them by borer the name at the top of this screen, and you can set upwards a new identity here as well.
RoboForm'due south mobile browser is perfectly adequate. It displays a little scarlet dot over the Form Fill up push in the bottom right if y'all take relevant stored data bachelor for the page you are viewing. But there's no reason to employ it unless you're using an older version of iOS or Android that doesn't support form-filling in all browsers.
The concluding section is Tools, which contains the Password Generator, Sharing Middle, Security Centre and Emergency Access. Everything is well laid out and the icons are nicely done.
RoboForm: Security
Like virtually password managers, RoboForm uses AES-256 encryption to secure your data on its servers. Your information is never decrypted unless information technology'southward by your master password on your own devices.
RoboForm has expanded its support for ii-factor authentication. While yous withal tin't use defended hardware, like a YubiKey, RoboForm now supports TOTP-based mobile authenticator apps such as Authy, Google Authenticator and Microsoft Authenticator. It also at present has an authenticator of its own congenital right into the desktop browser extensions.
You can opt to receive a one-time countersign via email or SMS, simply those are considerably easier than authenticator apps for a hacker to attack.
RoboForm review: Lesser line
RoboForm may not be able to get toe-to-toe with the top password managers on features, but it is amongst the most affordable countersign-director options and is certainly the strongest in the sub-$25 a year range.
Particularly in lite of the redesigned website and vastly improved mobile apps, I think RoboForm is a viable selection for budget-witting buyers that aren't especially swayed by the higher-terminate features offered by the likes of LastPass, Keeper or Dashlane.
Updated to add together 2FA code generator in desktop apps. This review was originally posted in July 2020.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/roboform
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