[00:00:09.100] - Gordon
Hello. My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:00:11.610] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:00:13.890] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week with Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected our businesses over the last seven days. And thank you so much for joining us. So it's been a stressful week for me.
[00:00:28.890] - Taylor
Yeah?
[00:00:29.290] - Gordon
Yeah. So not only do I have problems with my hard drives, as I was saying last week, but I also had my computer which needed an interim update, which I did, and it restarted so that it could start up with the new update and it wouldn't restart.
[00:00:48.330] - Taylor
Not good.
[00:00:49.450] - Gordon
Not good at all. So yeah. The good thing is Apple support, their telephone support is really good. I gave them a call and they talked through various options with me. And the one I went with was to back up the hard drive onto a separate hard drive, wipe the computer, and then reinstall from time machine, which took about three days.
[00:01:14.910] - Taylor
Wow!
[00:01:14.910] - Gordon
Which was quite a long time, but I am now back up and running. So thank goodness for that. But have you ever tried Apple Support?
[00:01:23.580] - Taylor
I have. Yeah, I have a couple of times.
[00:01:26.910] - Gordon
What's really good is they don't limit you to the warranty period. So quite often you'll get 12 months worth of support and then that's it. With Apple, you can ring them up about a five year old machine and they'll help you.
[00:01:40.000] - Taylor
Yeah, that's really good.
[00:01:40.000] - Gordon
They're really good at that. So hopefully whatever system you have, you'll be able to get just as good support. But I'll be honest, I'm not sure it's going to be as good as Apple's. Apple is very good. So what are we going to talk about this week, Taylor?
[00:01:57.800] - Taylor
We are going to talk about 1Password.
[00:02:00.840] - Gordon
Okay. So 1Password is an application that I've been using now for about 15 years, I think, something like that. The idea behind it is it's an application where you have all of your logins, all of your passwords from anywhere, whether that be on the internet or whether it be in real life. You can have...
[00:02:24.880] - Taylor
All your sensitive and secure information.
[00:02:26.530] - Gordon
Sensitive information. You can have pin codes for alarms, anything that's not online, but mainly for websites and for accounts and all this sort of thing. And it's called 1Password because it stores all of your passwords and your data behind a one password. So you have a master password that unlocks the application and then gives you access to all the other passwords. And it's been really really good. I recommended it to you. You've used it for a long time. Problem is that the Safari browser has a little... What's it called? An extension that allows you to input your login details to a website by going to the website and then it'll auto fill it for you. And the classic version, which is what I've always had, has been a license key that you buy for a version. So we had a 1Password 7, which was the version that I paid my license for. I paid lots of other licenses; I think I started it when it was 1Password 3, something like that. So every time there's been a new license, I've updated. However, they went cloud based and because of that, they decided not to update the Safari browser extension any further than July the first. So July the first, we were going to lose access to all of our browser access, basically. In fact, I think they were keeping Safari, but in the future, it's likely to die at some point. And they've gone cloud based, which I get. Most companies who want to stick around.
[00:04:28.990] - Taylor
Well, cloud and subscription based.
[00:04:30.280] - Gordon
Yeah, cloud based and subscription based. And I get it. I understand why they do that. I do subscription based services as well, and it helps to bring money in so that you can then continue to grow and build the service. But for those people who already had the classic, which was basically a one-off license fee, it's a bit of a kick in the teeth, really. So I was not happy. So I emailed them, and I said to them, "Is there any other option? Because I don't really want to pay annually for what I'm getting for free at the moment." And they came back and they said, "Yeah, the next version up, version 8 is very good. It allows you to do all sorts of things you can't do at the moment. And I'll tell you what, we'll give you 50% discount on the next three annual subscriptions."
[00:05:30.410] - Taylor
That's good.
[00:05:31.570] - Gordon
Yeah. So I had a look and it was like $60 per year. So that would have worked out at $30 a year. And that's for a family subscription, which gives you up to five members of your family. And you know what? I do use it. And if they've gone subscription based, it means that they're not going to be doing licences anymore. And it means that I get the latest updates. And it's a little bit like paying for a license now, but every year you're getting the updates.
[00:06:05.930] - Taylor
It's also, I think it's one of those things that you probably don't want to skimp out on in terms of... It's where all pretty much your entire life is stored in terms of the security. And there's been a lot of data breaches and multiple data breaches for some companies within the space of a couple of months. And you think, "Well, you're paying for the security and they're having data breaches." And I think 1Password is probably one of the best password managers out there that have very limited data breaches. And I can't remember the last time they've had a data breach.
[00:06:42.360] - Gordon
I don't believe they have. And the other thing is that all the data is encrypted anyway. And when you actually sign up for the cloud service, you get sent a secret key, which you need if you forget your login details. If you don't have that secret key, you don't get back in because even 1Password can't access it because it's all encrypted.
[00:07:04.860] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:07:04.860] - Gordon
Which means if there was a data breach, they're not going to take very much because they can't, it's all encrypted. So yeah, I mean I use this service a lot and I don't begrudge spending the money. I have supported them in the past with all the license updates every time they bring out a new version. But it is a great bit of software. Do you want to explain what you can do with the new version, maybe, that you couldn't do with the old version?
[00:07:34.670] - Taylor
So the new version has things like copying universal clipboard, so you can copy between, you know copy on your computer and paste it on your iPhone or something like that?
[00:07:44.850] - Gordon
Yeah, I should say you get access to the app on all devices. So you change your password on one website, it goes into 1Password, it's then available on all your other devices. You can even log in as a web user. But I think you need your secret key to do that. So you have to have that available to you.
[00:08:06.110] - Taylor
Yeah. So you've obviously got your global password that updates for everything. They have QR codes now, so you can scan a QR code. I'm not sure what it does.
[00:08:15.450] - Gordon
It adds a new device. So it basically allows you to download the app onto your phone, for example, scan the QR code, and it'll say, "Right, this is your account. This has been verified. We're going to set you up with this account as if you'd logged in now," which is great.
[00:08:31.870] - Taylor
They have different types of vaults and things like that. Again, you can have better access and you can create vaults and share access a lot easier. So the way we were doing it before, we had to use Dropbox, which again, probably isn't the secureist because it's stored on Dropbox. So then you've got another thing to worry about. If you've got a data breach on Dropbox, then that's where all of your things are stored and they're probably not as encrypted. Obviously, the file itself is encrypted, but they probably don't have the same level of encryption for the actual entire server that 1Password probably have.
[00:09:08.510] - Gordon
And interestingly, I have a free account on Dropbox. I don't pay for it. And so I am limited to three devices. So I could only have 1Password on three devices with Dropbox storing my vault. Whereas now, I have unlimited devices. I can put them on as many as I need to.
[00:09:29.520] - Taylor
What other features are there?
[00:09:31.680] - Gordon
I should say without 1Password, I probably would not be able to get into 95% of the websites that I have logins for.
[00:09:43.460] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:09:44.660] - Gordon
I don't know what the passwords are because they're generated, they're random, they're letters and numbers, and upper case, lower case, symbols. I have no idea what they are.
[00:09:56.000] - Taylor
So you do have the browser based keychains. So Safari has their own, Firefox has their own, Chrome, Brave, whatever, all have their own, but they don't always sync. And if you do want them to sync, you have to be using the exact same browser across every single device. So I don't use Safari on my computer, but I use it on my phone. And so all of my stuff gets stored in the Firefox in the keychain on my computer, but gets stored to Safari's keychain on my phone. And so I would never be able to keep everything in sync, whereas 1Password works, regardless of the browser. And you can have the browser extension on all your devices and all your browser extensions.
[00:10:33.500] - Gordon
It also allows you to store credit card and debit card and bank details. Again, it's all encrypted so that should you need them, you know you're out and about, you don't have your credit card on you, you can log into 1Password and just use all the details. You can put everything in there. It's all encrypted hidden behind this security, so it's very safe to use it.
[00:10:57.770] - Taylor
They've got a quick access little pop up menu so you can quickly search all of your passwords. So I had an Alfred snippet that did basically similar to this. You would type 1P space, and then what you wanted to search for, and it would return all your passwords, the titles of them, and you can hit Enter to open them up and see what the password is and things like that, which is quite useful because it's easy and quick to be able to search your entire password database.
[00:11:28.750] - Gordon
And now it's all built in.
[00:11:30.450] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:11:31.210] - Gordon
The other thing that it does is it's very smart. So it knows what website you're on. It also knows what application you've loaded, and it will offer suggestions. "Is this what you want me to fill?" And you can click Auto fill. It'll automatically put the details in the right place, which is really, really useful.
[00:11:52.360] - Taylor
Another good feature is the watch tower. So this is, it scans for data breaches. So if there's been a data breach, it will say there has been a data breach for this website or whatever. And then it also scans for your weak passwords. So if you were reused before, it would say you've reused a certain password a hundred times or whatever. Or it will say it's just a weak password in general. And then you get a score. And obviously, the higher the score, the better. And you can obviously make changes to make sure that all of your passwords are up to date and they're all secure. You haven't reused them. And also if there's been a data breach, you've updated and changed it since.
[00:12:35.960] - Gordon
Yeah, and it's really useful. It tells you about duplicates. It tells you if you've got any websites that are insecure, as in they're not using HTTPS, the S being the secure part, which is the little padlock, which is really useful. And as you said earlier, you can put all of your logins, for example, all your data, into different vaults. So for example, I have my own personal vault, which has all my own personal logins and data that only I have access to. Taylor has the same. He's got his own personal one. We then have a shared one, which is tools that we use, website services, that sort of thing, where we have one login or license keys, where we have one license key between us that we've purchased between us. And so we put that in the shared vault. And by having access to the shared vault, we both have access that we can then use and change. So if the password changes, for example, a password on a website or a license key, that can be changed in one of them and it automatically updates on all of mine as well as all of Taylor's, because it's used in the shared vault. We also have one for the family. So we have a shared family vault and in there we currently don't have very much because we've never had this before. But I put all of our passport details in there so that while we're away, if we lose our passport, at least we've got the number and all the details that we need already in our phone or our devices or accessible online. So we can get information like that back again. And if there's any other family based logins that I can put in there, like TV license, that's a family based one. And there's going to be lots of others that I can't think of at the moment. Fuel bills, fuel accounts, they can all go in the family one because that way, if someone else in the family wants to get into it or deal with it, they've got the login details, they can do so, which is great, really useful. Anything else that you can think of that's really useful on this?
[00:14:53.940] - Taylor
Erm...
[00:14:54.850] - Gordon
If you don't have a password manager, by the way, you really should. Because everyone says that you should have different passwords for every different thing that you use passwords for. And I think this is true. You should definitely do that because otherwise, if you have someone who finds out your password and you use it everywhere, they'll get into everything. And that's really, really bad for you as a person to have someone having access to all of your passwords. Plus it's a nightmare to go and change them all. If you have to go in and change all your passwords because you've lost one password and everyone now has access to it, and you've got to go in and change your password on a thousand different websites. What a nightmare. Yeah, terrible. If you lose one password and you have to go and change one website, well, that's hardly a problem, is it?
[00:15:48.450] - Taylor
Yeah, the only annoying thing is when you have things like our MetaQuest 2, which you can't have access to your 1Password. So if you were logging in on someone else's computer or somewhere where you don't have access to be able to copy and paste, it can be annoying because they're normally just random characters and letters and numbers and things.
[00:16:12.160] - Gordon
But you don't need to put them in very often that way.
[00:16:14.360] - Taylor
No, but they're still...
[00:16:15.340] - Gordon
It is still a pain.
[00:16:15.340] - Taylor
...Sometimes annoying. Especially with awkward keyboards that you get.
[00:16:19.140] - Gordon
Yeah, and things like Netflix and stuff on an Apple TV, you still have to manually put that in. And I have to go on to my 1Password and put it in character by character because I have no idea what it is because it makes no sense. It's just gobbledygook. But that's the most secure way of doing it.
[00:16:34.480] - Taylor
They do have the Apple TV remote for your phone now, so you can actually copy and paste.
[00:16:39.660] - Gordon
That is true.
[00:16:40.390] - Taylor
Which is nice. But things like MetaQuest, you just don't have control over. And when you are signing up for things on the WiFi, you've got a PlayStation or things like that, again, that used to be annoying because they didn't have a remote for you like they do for the Apple TV.
[00:16:56.200] - Gordon
And I should say, if you change your password on a website that 1Password already knows about, it will then pop up a little box saying, "you've changed the password, shall I update it for you in your records?" And you go, "yes please," and it remembers it for you.
[00:17:10.350] - Taylor
And it does the same when you're creating a new account. It recognises you've created a new account. "Do you want me to save?" And it saves all the details for you.
[00:17:18.160] - Gordon
Yeah, which is really good. And it will generate its own passwords. I think we mentioned that. But you can specify how long you want the password to be, whether you want it to have upper, lowercase letters, whether you want it to have numbers, whether you want it to have symbols. You get to choose, really. And obviously, the more of these you have set to yes, the more secure your password is going to be.
[00:17:39.750] - Taylor
There's a really good website which basically shows you, you put your password in it shows you how long it would take a computer to crack your password, which you got to be careful about because sometimes it could be dodgy putting the password in. But at the same time, it goes to show how long it would take for a six word password versus a 32 character password.
[00:18:05.990] - Gordon
Yep.
[00:18:05.990] - Taylor
And obviously, the better technology gets, the easier it becomes.
[00:18:10.480] - Gordon
Quicker it becomes, especially with AI. I'm sure there's people out there using AI to crack passwords. It wouldn't surprise me. So yeah, we've not been asked to talk about 1Password, and we've not been sponsored by them. I think I will send them a link to this so that they know that we've done it. It's always nice to tell people about the products that you're talking about. But no, we've not been sponsored at all. If they want to let us have a lifetime account, that'd be lovely. But that's not what we're going for here. We use it because we love it, and we're telling you about it because we think it's really good. If you don't have it, we'll put a link in the show notes and go and have a look. It won't be a... I don't believe they have an affiliate scheme, so it won't be an affiliate link. It will just be a link because we want you to have a secure password. And I think that's their aim. I think 1Password's aim is to make sure that everybody uses really secure passwords. Quite interestingly, I was reading an article just this week about Google who are trying to get rid of passwords. So there is a time in the future where maybe we won't need passwords and everything will be biometric. Or I'm not entirely sure. I didn't really grasp what Google were doing as far as their passwordless systems.
[00:19:45.640] - Taylor
They're normally authentication through another device, which is normally how they do it and things like that.
[00:19:51.680] - Gordon
Okay. Which is fine as long as you've got that other device with you.
[00:19:55.230] - Taylor
Yes.
[00:19:55.380] - Gordon
Or you have another device. If you're out and about and you only have your phone on you, that's not going to be helpful. So I'm guessing they've thought this through. But 1Password is quite adaptable. I'm sure that if something like this comes along, they will adapt and find a way to be able to support whatever comes in, whether that be biometric or something else. So yeah. Anything else you want to say?
[00:20:20.690] - Taylor
For the developers out there, they have a command line. So if you have SSH keys for things like GitHub, they have integrations with that. So you can basically SSH into 1Password, and you don't need to know the key. You don't need to copy and paste it. You can just use the command line to do that. Which could be useful as well.
[00:20:43.520] - Gordon
Yeah. that's really good, yeah. And I think they offer other developer opportunities as well so maybe there's something you can look at and see if there's anything that would be of interest to you. Maybe there'll be some website based 1Password stuff in the future. Who knows?
[00:21:02.350] - Taylor
Who knows?
[00:21:03.160] - Gordon
Who knows? So I think that's everything from me.
[00:21:06.070] - Taylor
And me as well.
[00:21:06.890] - Gordon
Thank you so much for joining us. As always, we can be found on Facebook and on YouTube. Please like, share, and subscribe.
[00:21:14.760] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes and anything we may have spoken about.
[00:21:21.030] - Gordon
We should say we apologise for the delay in last week's episode. It got delayed going out. I don't know why, but we had issues and hopefully they're fixed now. We were a few hours late, I think. So apologies if you were waiting for it and it didn't come. But this one should be on time. We should be fine. I think we're okay. Yeah, I think we're okay. So please join us again next week at 1pm on Friday. Until then, my name is Gordon, I'm from Drayson Design.
[00:21:55.490] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:21:58.840] - Gordon
Goodbye.
[00:22:00.640] - Taylor
Bye.
