Blur password manager review

Our Verdict

Mistiness is just okay equally a password manager, but it has excellent privacy protections if that's what you lot're looking for.

For

Unique privacy-protecting features
Potent autofill back up

Against

Unreliable password import
Poor mobile app experience
Relatively expensive if you just demand a countersign manager

Tom's Guide Verdict

Blur is but okay as a password manager, but it has excellent privacy protections if that's what you lot're looking for.

Pros

+
Unique privacy-protecting features
+
Strong autofill support

Cons

-
Unreliable password import
-
Poor mobile app experience
-
Relatively expensive if you just need a password manager

Mistiness password manager specs

Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux (via browsers); Android, iOS
Complimentary-version limitations: Single device; fewer privacy features
2FA: Yes
Browser plugins: Chrome, Firefox, Cyberspace Explorer, Opera, Safari
Form filling: Yep
Mobile Pivot unlock: No
Biometric login: Face up ID, Touch ID on iOS, almost Android fingerprint readers
Killer feature: Extensive privacy features

Blur's focus is different from those of other password managers. Its parent company, Abine, calls itself "the online privacy visitor," and Blur offers a unique feature set as a upshot.

In terms of pricing, Mistiness falls just north of most of the competition amidst the best password managers, at $39 per year for the paid programme. Simply Dashlane costs more than at $60 per twelvemonth, only you exercise get unlimited VPN service with that.

If you can make use of Blur's extensive privacy-protection features, all the same, then its pricing seems more reasonable. Simply it'south a large hurdle to overcome when comparing Mistiness directly to cheaper, more capable password managers like LastPass, Keeper and 1Password.

Blur password director: Costs and what's covered

Blur has iii pricing tiers: a costless option, a bones premium plan and an unlimited premium plan. The premium plans each offer xxx-day free trials, merely you must sign upwards with a credit card.

The bones plan is pretty rudimentary. It supports password and business relationship direction, automobile-fill up for addresses and credit cards, masked emails and tracker blocking. There'due south no syncing betwixt devices.

Blur password manager review — (Image credit: Tom'south Guide)

The masked e-mail feature lets yous enter a custom email address (free users go upwardly to three) when signing upwardly with new websites so that y'all won't become spam. You tin can check these addresses' inboxes on the Mistiness website. Tracker blocking prevents websites from putting tracker cookies in your browser.

If y'all've got just one single device — for example, you do everything on your smartphone — this is great, only the lack of a sync feature makes this free tier untenable for users who jump between computers and phones.

Blur's basic premium plan is $39 for the year and includes the full functionality of the service. This adds backup and sync for your accounts and passwords across devices, masked credit cards, masked phone numbers, multiple forwarding of masked emails and expedited support via the online support organisation.

Masked credit cards are virtual prepaid cards approved only for a specific corporeality and transaction. On the bones premium plan, the cost per masked carte is $two for any card nether $100 and an additional 1.v% fee based on the total value of the card for anything more than $100.

The unlimited premium plan is $99 for the year and offers everything found in basic premium, plus an unlimited number of masked cards for no boosted charge. Whether this makes sense for you lot depends entirely on how often you think you will apply masked cards.

On the desktop, Blur is entirely browser-based, without whatever client software. In that location are Blur browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera and even Internet Explorer, just not yet for Edge. On mobile devices, Mistiness is available for iOS nine.0 and above and Android 4.4 KitKat and up.

For this review, I used Blur on a 2017 MacBook Pro 15 running Windows 10 and macOS 10.xiv Mojave, an iPhone 7 Plus and a Google Pixel 3 running Android nine Pie. Google Chrome was my primary browser beyond all platforms simply testing on macOS and iOS was also done with Safari.

Blur password manager: Setup

Setting up Blur is well-nigh as easy as information technology gets, as at that place'south just the web interface, browser extensions and mobile apps.

Creating your account requires an email address and a master countersign. Unusually for a password director, Blur has a elementary account-recovery choice that will restore your electronic mail, phone and card services with only an email confirmation.

Recovering your passwords requires y'all to provide a fill-in passphrase that Mistiness generates for you during setup. The passphrase is a multiple-line ready of random words that you should write downwards and salve in a safe location. For reference, the passphrase is besides viewable in Blur's settings, and on the master passwords screen unless you hit the "Hide forever" button just beneath the passphrase.

To take total advantage of Blur's features, y'all should also ready your Masked Phone. Simply enter your actual phone number and verify a code sent to that number. Blur and then automatically generates your masked phone number, which volition forward calls, texts and voicemails to your existent number. Changing your Masked Phone number costs $7.

If you previously used another password manager or saved passwords in your browser, you will want to import your existing data. In theory, Blur offers back up for imports from 1Password, Dashlane, KeePass, LastPass, PasswordWallet, RoboForm and standard CSV files, only I had no luck getting information technology to recognize imports from any of those.

Even so, I was able to export passwords that I had saved to Google Chrome as a standard CSV file and Blur imported that without issue and even correctly skipped some duplicate accounts.

The Mistiness mobile apps are in the iOS and Android app stores. You can transport the download link to your phone by clicking the "Mobile Devices" link at the meridian of the Blur dashboard and entering your phone number.

Mistiness password manager on the desktop

As previously mentioned, Blur doesn't have a standalone desktop application. Everything is done through the Mistiness website and its browser extensions.

The Blur web interface is functional but lacks the polish of competitors like Keeper or LastPass. The principal dashboard lists either iv categories, or all ix sections, of the app depending on the compact or full view. The compact view looks cleaner withal retains one-click access to your passwords.

The Accounts and Passwords department displays items in a list, with basic stats most the number of your accounts and reused passwords.

Oddly, the accounts tab is where y'all tin edit or delete passwords and go straight to the sites concerned. The passwords tab shows yous how often you lot're reusing passwords simply won't allow y'all take whatsoever actions.

The Wallet category contains your Masked Cards and the three auto-fill sections Credit Cards, Addresses and Identities.

1 thing to notation: Y'all volition need to use a billing accost supplied by Blur parent company Abine Inc. when using Masked Cards. Carte balances are refundable if they are not fully used, and while you can charge Masked Cards to only one (real) primary card at a time, y'all tin can change this primary bill of fare at whatsoever time.

The auto-fill sections all work reliably. Populate them with your credit card numbers, addresses and identity data and you volition be able to fill online forms with a single click.

The Masking category has 3 sections: Masked Emails, Masked Cards and Masked Phones. Let's look at the interface for Masked Emails and Masked Phones.

From the Masked Emails screen, yous tin create new email addresses, view their inboxes, toggle bulletin forwarding on or off and set boosted or alternative forwarding addresses.

Masked Phones displays your number and the fourth dimension and caller information for anyone who has chosen or texted that number. You can alter your Masked Number, top off your balance and initiate calls from the Masked Phone number Dial a number, and you'll receive a call on your telephone that will exist automatically connected to the number you lot dialed.

The final department is Tracking, which merely displays a daily breakdown of blocked trackers.

Blur's browser extensions are a bit confusing. Clicking the extension icon pulls up a compact view, with a count of trackers found on the current webpage and suggested logins or autofill info. Clicking anywhere in the suggested box opens an expanded view that displays the suggested fill info, plus tabs to add new accounts and autofill addresses, credit cards and telephone numbers.

Below that are toggles for each of the four principal categories if you desire to turn one on or off for that site. Overall, the extensions are a scrap cluttered and non entirely intuitive, only they certainly can save you lot a trip to the website for quick tasks.

Mistiness mobile apps

The Blur mobile apps are horribly out of date and, at times, completely unusable. Their home screens brandish just a simple single-column list view with Accounts, Wallet, Masking, Quick Passwords, Tracking and Private Search.

Given the incredible simplicity of the Mistiness website interface's compact view, it's odd that Mistiness could not utilize a like await to the apps for consistency. The apps were oftentimes slow to display data, and sometimes would just lock upwardly completely so that I had to impale the processes.

Accounts, Wallet and Masking are the same as on the website. Quick Passwords lets y'all create 10-grapheme passwords at varying levels of strength. Tracking walks you through disabling or monitoring tracking features on your smartphone. Private Search is just a link to the DuckDuckGo browser, which shares Blur's emphasis on privacy.

There's zippo incorrect with the feature set Mistiness offers on the mobile apps, simply Blur needs to ready their stability and bring their interfaces into line with the Blur website.

Blur countersign manager: Security

Function of protecting your privacy is protecting your passwords, and Blur uses the aforementioned powerful AES-256 encryption as the rest of the password-manager industry.

The Blur backup passphrase functions as a level of encryption for your password database in conjunction with your main countersign. The one deviation between what Blur is doing with this and 1Password's Secret Key is that you can utilize the backup passphrase to recover your business relationship on Mistiness.

Blur also supports two-gene authentication in the form of time-based ane-fourth dimension passwords (TOTP) that yous can generate using the mobile apps Google Authenticator, Authy or Free OTP.

Blur password manager review: Bottom line

Looking strictly at its password-direction features, Blur can't really hold up to competition similar LastPass, Dashlane, 1Password or Keeper. At $39 a twelvemonth for the cheaper premium feature ready, Blur is more expensive than all merely Dashlane, though any of those other four well outstrip Blur in terms of features and the overall user experience.

With that said, Blur does offering privacy protection features that none of the other password managers can match. If that aspect sounds interesting to you, information technology may be worth giving Blur a wait.

A cocky-professed "wearer of wearables," Sean Riley is a Senior Writer for Laptop Magazine who has been covering tech for more than a decade. He specializes in covering phones and, of course, wearable tech, but has as well written about tablets, VR, laptops, and smart abode devices, to name only a few. His articles take as well appeared in Tom's Guide, TechTarget, Phandroid, and more than.