Cross platform Keychain access

[imrazor]

I find myself getting drawn deeper and deeper into the Apple "ecosystem" by iCloud Keychain of all things. It's supposedly secure, and super convenient, at least on Apple devices. The ability to seamlessly generate secure passwords, and then use them across multiple devices is priceless. Yet it falls apart if I have to use a Windows or Linux PC, or a browser other than Safari.

Is there any way to get access to iCloud Keychain on a non-Apple device/browser? Is there any chance of Apple enabling browsers other than Safari, or creating a developer API for iCloud Keychain?

 

[adrianlondon]

I don't see any of those happening, unfortunately.

I'm slowly moving away from Apple stock apps in case my next laptop happens to be a Windows one, but mainly due to minor annoyances with most of them. A couple of years ago, irritated by some Safari limitations (which are still present, but that's another topic) I moved to Firefox on my Macbook.

No keychain. Grrr! So I installed Bitwarden. It's excellent. I find it better than Keychain as I can manually add any fields I want auto-filled. Keychain, for example, refuses to auto-fill my router password as the password box doesn't identify itself clearly enough. Bitwarden? No problem.

And now that iOS allows third party password managers, I've left Keychain behind and use Bitwarden for everything. It even works back in Safari for those times my bleeding-edge Firefox Nightly build goes from bleeding-edge to over-the-edge and stops working.

 

[imrazor]

My problem with 3rd party password managers is one of trust. I don't know who any of those developers are, or how well implemented their security and encryption is. I know some of them are well-regarded, but as small developers I presume their resources are limited. I know Apple doesn't have a perfect security record, but it seems a good bit better than most software companies.