LastPass vs. Your Browser: What’s the Difference?

As people consider their options for managing passwords, we often hear the question: What’s the difference between LastPass and just saving passwords in my web browser? Most major browsers will detect logins and prompt the user to save their password. But a dedicated password manager like LastPass takes it several steps further to help you manage your digital life. By highlighting the differences, we hope to help you make a more informed decision and find a password solution that best fits your needs. Here we’ve broken down a few of the many advantages of LastPass:

Universal Access.

With the browser password manager, the functionality is built right into the browser. That very convenience, though, is what prevents this option from being as secure and robust as your password manager should be. With LastPass, we work on every browser, on every computer platform, and on every mobile device. Since we work completely independently of the operating system and the browser, your data is not confined to a single ecosystem. You can download LastPass anywhere, login with the same account, and sync your data automatically. So if you find yourself using a PC at work, a Mac at home, an Android smartphone, and an iPad tablet, you’ll have access to your passwords on all your devices. And should your computer crash or your smartphone go for a swim, everything you’ve stored in LastPass is securely backed up. You can even login via the web vault to get any logins, passwords, or notes you need. With automated sync and backup built right into the product, that’s one less thing for you to worry about.

Increased Productivity.

As a dedicated password manager, LastPass is built to do much more than just remember and fill your passwords. Autofilling your passwords saves you a lot of time and headache, but there are many other features to help you be more efficient and keep track of all your important information:

• Collaborate with others with secure password sharing features, whether you share one site with a friend or sync a whole Shared Folder of logins and notes.
• Generate strong, unique passwords with the password generator, so you can easily use a different password for every single account.
• Securely store more logins with more universal recognition of websites, including support for banking and financial websites that intentionally block browser password managers.
• Audit your passwords with the LastPass Security Challenge, highlighting any weak, duplicate, and potentially-insecure passwords you may have for your accounts.
• Store notes with important information like software keys, memberships, IDs, WiFi logins, and more.
• Change passwords automatically with our new Auto-Password Change feature.
• Lock down your account with multifactor authentication using one of the 12+ options we support to help protect you from man-in-the-middle attacks, keylogging, and other threats.
• Securely enter credit cards as you shop online, with LastPass Form Fill Profiles to encrypt and backup your payment information.
• Enable other dedicated security features, like limiting access to specific countries, using a security email address, restricting mobile access, and more.
• Team password management features with LastPass Enterprise.

Security First.

It may go without saying, but as a password management service, security and privacy are our primary focus. Everything we do and every decision we make revolves around security first. Our reputation lives and dies by the trust our community can place in us, and it’s a responsibility we take very seriously. We’ve built LastPass with AES 256-bit encryption, the strongest encryption standard currently available. Encryption and decryption happens locally, so our zero-knowledge architecture ensures that we never have the master password, and therefore never have the key to your data. We’ve enhanced our security model with salted hashing and PBKDF2 implemented with SHA-256, better protecting you from threats like brute-force attacks. We’re continually monitoring cyber security threats and improving our product with the latest in encryption technology. That’s also why we’ve been committed over the years to notifying our community of any big security incidents or breaches. We’ve built tools to help you understand if you may have been affected. Our mission is to help you be proactive and informed, so you’re staying one step ahead.

Choose Wisely.

LastPass provides convenience and usability, along with improved security. By being browser and platform “agnostic”, you’re free to stick with your current workflow, and even add new browsers and services over time without worrying about whether you’ll have your data. At the end of the day, consider a tool that helps you remember every password, but also helps you generate strong passwords for every account. It’s not that your browser can’t keep track of your passwords, but a password manager like LastPass helps you efficiently and securely manage your entire digital life.