Updated 3/26: Mozilla’s Lockbox tool is now available for Android, in addition to iOS.
There are plenty of incredible password managers out there—1Password and LastPass come to mind—but Mozilla has password-management aspirations of its own. The company just released two new new mobile apps as part of its Test Pilot program and one, Firefox Lockbox, is a pretty convenient way to pull up your passwords on your iPhone and iPad.
Here’s how it works. If you’re a heavy Firefox user and you aren’t using a separate password management extension—just saving your passwords in your browser—you’re a perfect candidate to try Lockbox. Install it on your iPhone or iPad, pull it up, and log in using your Firefox account. Once you do, you’ll see all your saved logins and passwords in a big ol’ list.
Tap on an entry, and you’ll see the saved web address—which you can tap on to load the site in any browser on your smartphone, depending on what you set in the app’s settings—as well as your username and password. You can tap on either to automatically copy one to your clipboard, which is handy for pasting into an app or website form.
And that’s it.
Firefox Lockbox has few—really, none—of the bells and whistles you’ll find in other password-management apps, but there’s something pleasant about its simplicity. Also, I appreciate that the app automatically locks after a certain amount of time has passed (which you can also adjust in its settings menu), and it automatically asks for either Touch ID or Face ID to authenticate back in.
It would be ideal if you could edit your passwords in the app and have that synchronize back to your Firefox account. Or, better yet, if you could pull up your login credentials within an associated app a la 1Password, rather than having to jump out, load Lockbox, tap a field, jump back into the app, jump back to Lockbox, tap a... you get the idea.
Still, for a v1 project, Lockbox gets the job done. Expect to see a version for Android arrive at some future date.
Do you have an iOS or Android app that you absolutely love? Tell me about it: [email protected].