How to Install the Latest Bitwarden?
I love Bitwarden, an Open Source password manager. I used to use LastPass, it was perfect. But their recent years policy change where you can only login to limited devices has forced me to source for something else. Bitwarden feels like the natural replacement, the transition from LastPass is relatively seamless and painless. If you are already using LastPass, using Bitwarden feels like home.
You might have this question, why even bother using a password manager? If I am using a strong combination of password, surely it would be enough? Not exactly, Tom Scott has a really awesome video talking about how not to store password from application perspective. But what it really implies is that we should also be aware of the risk, how a software company can possibly leaked out our precious passwords, and hence be more vigilant on the way we use our password. If you’re not sure what to do, just use Bitwarden :)
And better yet, also turning on 2FA (two factor authentication) whenever possible.
I have been using Bitwarden for a few years now, on my iPhone, Windows desktop and also on MacBook. So far the experience has been great, except on one instance. There is a bug on Windows Google Chrome that has been bothering me for sometimes now, the vault timeout doesn’t quite work out as it supposed to be.
No matter which option you choose in the timeout setting, Bitwarden doesn’t seem to register option, it will still timeout and requires me to login every time I restarted my Windows. While this is great if you’re looking at this from a security perspective, it is not if you’re someone like me — who just doesn’t like to type out my password every single time, especially when I am confident that my computer is relatively safe.
After some researching, it turns out that this bug has actually been addressed. However, the fix hasn’t been included in the version that released in the Chrome Extension web store yet. In another words, the release in the Chrome extension web store, is actually not the latest version. It is no surprise though, given that you would want to release only a stable version and it probably involves lengthy process to release it to Chrome Extension web store.
There is a way to go around this though. You can actually install the extension manually. If you’re feeling adventurous, here are the steps that allow you to install truly the latest version of Bitwarden.
- Go to Bitwarden GitHub release page, here we would like to look for a release that prefixed with “Browser”, e.g. https://github.com/bitwarden/clients/releases/tag/browser-v2022.8.0.
- Here, download the corresponding zip file. In our example, we are looking for dist-chrome-2022.8.0.zip.
- We will need to extract this zip file to a folder. Now is a good chance to relocate this folder to a permanent location, say the program file folder. I reckon “Download” would not be an ideal place to permanently keep the extension files, or is it just me? :)
- In Google Chrome, go to chrome://extensions. We will need to turn on Developer mode by toggling the button on the top right corner.
- Click on Load Unpacked, and select the folder that we have extracted in Step 2.
- That’s it, we have now installed the latest Bitwarden (manually).
Are you already using a Bitwarden or any other password manager? Tell me in the comment section what’s your thought about it.
