Proton Pass free password manager emerges from beta

Although alternative technologies continue to make inroads, most of us are still heavily reliant on passwords to secure our digital identities.

Proton, the company behind Proton Mail, Proton VPN and other products, launched a new, free password manager called -- you'll have guessed already -- Proton Pass in beta a couple of months ago.

Proton Pass is now out of beta and publicly available from today. It can generate, fill and save passwords securely so users don't need to remember them. It can import passwords from all major browsers as well as from a number of other password managers.

There's an additional feature that gives users the option, when signing up for an online service, to create a 'hide-my-email' alias, a randomly generated email address sitting between a third party (like Amazon, Facebook, or Netflix) and the users' real email account. This prevents third parties from identifying the user, filters out trackers before forwarding messages to the real email account, and limits the ability to build profiles on users.

Andy Yen, founder and CEO of Proton, says, "The question ‘what is email’ is easily overlooked but hides a deeper significance. It’s probably been fifteen or twenty years since email was primarily a means of communication. What email actually is, is identity. It's your digital passport. The thing that identifies who you are. And with Proton Pass, it’s the thing that we're helping you protect."

The core functions of Proton Pass are free. This gives you unlimited logins, unlimited devices and up to 10 'hide-my-email' alias addresses, but there are additional options available to users that to choose to upgrade to a paid plan. Proton Pass Plus offers features including unlimited alias addresses, a 2FA authenticator and more. It costs $2.99 a month but you can get two years for $24 if you sign up before July 28.

You can find out more on the Proton site.

Image credit: Proton