LastPass Free now also available for mobile devices

LastPass, makers of the password management solution of the same name, announced that LastPass Free is now also available on mobile devices.

The previous service allowed unlimited syncs between desktop devices, but required users to sign up for a LastPass Premium account to extend the synchronization to mobile devices as well.

The offer is limited to devices of the same category, e.g. mobile to mobile or desktop to desktop, but does not include cross-device syncing. This means that users pick the desired version of LastPass for their device type and use it to sync data between devices of the same type.

The three device types that LastPass distinguishes between are desktops, smartphones and tablets. A Premium account, available for $12 per year, is still required for data synchronization between different device types.

The main change announced today extends free syncing to tablet and smartphone device classes.

Current free and premium users are not affected by the change at all. Customers who signed up for a premium trial of the application, either on a tablet or smartphone, will have that trial canceled automatically to use the free account on that device and other devices of the same type.

New customers who want to synchronize data across device types can activate a 14-day Premium trial first which enables unlimited data synchronization across all devices.

New users who want to use LastPass exclusively on mobile devices will welcome the change, as they don't have to sign up for a Premium account anymore to do that.

Nothing changes for users who require cross-device synchronization, as they need a Premium account for that still.

Download links for all versions of LastPass are provided on the official website.

Passwords and other data is stored on LastPass servers in the cloud. While that is comfortable, it adds another attack vector to these sensitive information. The June 2015 hack of LastPass has shown that things can go wrong even when a company is dedicated and motivated to keep user data secure.

An alternative is KeePass, a free password manager for various operating systems including Android. While syncing between devices may not be as straightforward if you avoid the cloud, it does give you full control over your data at all times.

Now You: Which password manager, if any, are you using?