Blur Password Manager Review

The internet gets bigger by the minute, and every day, we rely on it more and more to get things done. The thing is that along with its usefulness comes a risk—danger to your privacy, identity, and assets.

Today, we’re going to take a look at an online security service that can help keep you out of digital harm’s way. Read our Blur Password Manager review below to find out all you need to know.

What Is Blur?

Blur—formerly “DontTrackMe”—is a privacy service that protects you from ID theft by securing and managing your passwords.

It also enables you to use most websites anonymously by blocking trackers and masking emails, credit cards, and phone numbers.

Blur Best Features

Blur by Abine is all about online privacy. While a large part of its toolset goes beyond password management, you’ll find that this is still at the heart of the service.

Let’s see what Blur has to offer.

Password Management

Blur creates complex passwords, encrypts them, and stores them securely. You can use these passwords for any of your online accounts and forget all about keeping track of multiple login details.

Consulting all the passwords you’ve created with Blur is easy, though you don’t need to do that everytime you want to log in somewhere.

The service comes with an autofill feature that saves you time and trouble when signing in, but we’ll talk more about it later in our Abine Blur review.

Blur’s Masked Phones

Blur allows you to set up proxy phone numbers that will forward calls, texts, and voicemail to your real phone number—mobile or landline.

This means you never have to give your real number to any websites (that may or may not sell your information).

Plus, when you’re done with whatever service you signed up for with the proxy number, you can block them with just one click. 

Blur’s Masked Email

Much like with phone numbers, Blur can create proxy email addresses that will forward your correspondence to your real address.

You can create as many different proxies as you need—even one for each account, if you so desire—and Blur will auto-fill it for you every time you visit the corresponding site.

By default, the addresses are a random string of characters, but you could also create custom ones. In fact, it’s advisable that you do, as random strings could always trigger spam suspicion. 

Blur’s Masked Cards

That’s right—Blur creates masked credit cards, too, ensuring you never have to input your real credit credentials into a site again.

Masked credit cards are only available for premium subscribers. If you pay for an unlimited membership, creating masked cards is free. If you only have a basic subscription, though, you’ll have to pay for each one you make.

The fee varies depending on the spending limit you choose for the card. If it’s $100 or less, you only pay $2. If it’s more, the price will equal 1.5% of the card’s value—e.g., creating a masked card with a $400 credit line will cost you $6.

Tracker Blocking

While there’s no Blur ad blocker per se, Blur does block website tracking to prevent targeted advertising. This means all the ads you see will be contextual to the site you’re on, instead of related to your browsing history.

Simply put, once you leave a site, they can’t track your activity anymore. Your online footprint is severely reduced without having to deal with cookies yourself.

Blur Setup

Setting up Blur is ultra simple. Since it’s web-based, you just have to go to Blur’s site, enter your email address, create a master password, and voilá!—You’re in.

Then, it’s just a matter of installing the browser extension to get full utility. 

If you’re going mobile, you’ll need to download the Blur security app. You can enter your phone number into the web app, and a download link will be sent directly to your phone.

Blur Password Management

Alright! It’s time for the main event—let’s talk about Blur’s password generator, changing process, and importation features.

Password Generator

The password generator lets you create complex passwords including letters, numbers, and symbols. The default length for the passwords is seven, but you can make them from six to 25 characters in length.

Despite the generator creating up to 25 characters, you can input more characters. We counted over 100 before we stopped.

Password Change Capabilities 

Blur will take you directly to the site you need to change the password for, from there the legwork is yours. Elect to change your password, use the Blur password generator to create a new one, and then the service will save it for you. 

Password Capture and Importation 

To import passwords in bulk, you can use a CSV file. Blur has a list of services you can import from, such as Dashlane, RoboForm, and 1Password. 

You can also capture passwords on the go whenever you log into a website. 

Autofill

Blur’s autofill works pretty well for login, identity, and credit info.

Plus, Blur allows for “mapping” when facing more advanced forms. With this feature, you can tell the service exactly what boxes require which specific info points, which makes filling out these forms much easier.

That said, it doesn’t work perfectly just yet. The extra advanced forms still pose a challenge.

Blur Security

Like any good password manager, Blur makes sure your data and access to your account are secure.

Blur Password Encryption

Blur encrypts your data with the highest industry standard available: AES-256.

If you’re one of the 65% of people in the US who doubt password managers’ ability to ward off cyber criminals, you’ll love this.

Passwords are decrypted on the client-side, meaning that even if your data were to be stolen from Blur, the actual passwords would be safe because AES-256 has yet to be cracked.

Multi-Factor Authentication

For the web-based app, you can enable 2FA in the form of a one-time pin through apps like Authy or Google Authenticator.

If you’re using the mobile apps, you have access to Face ID and Touch ID on iOS, as well as fingerprint verification for newer Android devices.

Account Recovery 

Upon creating a Blur account, you get a backup passphrase that’s a collection of random words. If you forget your master password, this is what you’ll need to use to get back into your account. 

It’s recommended you write it down and keep it somewhere safe, then hit the “Never Show Again” button to keep it safe from prying eyes.

Blur on Desktop

As the Blur password manager is web-based, it performs much the same on both Windows and Mac, and utilizes the same interface.

Blur for Windows

It’s lightweight and functional. We noticed no real issues, and no impact on system performance when running it.

We did most of our testing on Windows, in conjunction with the Blur Chrome extension.

Blur for Mac

The Mac version works just as well. The one benefit that the Mac version has over the Windows one is tha syncing the password vault app was quicker between macOS and iOS. 

Blur on Mobile

As mentioned above, Blur is available for both Android and iOS.

Let’s see how they compare.

Blur for Android

The app has 3.9 stars on the Google Play Store. The Blur security app offers all the same features as the web-based app, but it also allows you to save logins for other apps on your device.

Blur for iOS

The iOS version has a 3.7-star rating on the Apple App Store. Similarly, it offers the full features of the web-based app, along with Face ID and Touch ID for extra security and ease of use.

Blur Extension for Browsers

The Blur browser extension is available on all major providers, with Blur Chrome and Blur Firefox seeming to be the most popular. It offers quick access to all your saved info, as well as shortcuts to the web app.

The primary dashboard gives you the option to toggle settings for the web page you’re on. For example, you can choose to disable tracker blocking or masking, but keep your wallet enabled.

What We Disliked 

Now, we’d be remiss in our Blur Password Manager review if we didn’t go over the negatives of the program.

• No dark web monitoring – Blur reviews your password pool to show you if you’ve reused any, but that’s about it. It won’t check to see if any of your logins have been leaked online. While it’d be nice if this feature was included, you can still run these checks yourself on free web apps for password security, like “Have I Been Pwned?”.
• No password sharing – This might be the biggest deal-breaker for some. Blur doesn’t offer the ability to securely share passwords with others, which is something most other services do. If you’re planning on just keeping the service for personal use, it doesn’t really matter, but it’s an important feature if you have shared work or family accounts. 

Blur Password Price Plans

If you sign up for one of the following plans, you can get a Blur discount on Apine’s other service, DeleteMe, at 20% off.

Blur Support

Blur offers live chat and email support. Unfortunately, the live chat is only available during EST business hours during the week. Even so, we got no response when we tried to reach them and were redirected to Blur email support instead.

We emailed support and heard back from them roughly 24 hours later. The response was helpful, friendly, and concise.

Luckily, Blur has an extensive knowledge base that can answer almost any technical questions you might have, and it comes with links to the pages built into the various widgets you’ll be using.

Blur Reviews By Users

We wanted to see how others were finding the service, so we checked out some Blur Password Manager reviews that users wrote.

Surprisingly, there were nearly no reviews of the web-based application. Most of the Blur reviews were for the mobile apps we touched on above. 

In terms of pros, many users like the ability to mask their emails and credit cards. They also appreciate issues being resolved quickly when they arise.

Criticism seemed to come mainly from those using the app on non-mainstream devices, saying that the service isn’t optimized for them. Keep this in mind if you aren’t using a big name brand. 

Looking for an Abine Blur review on Reddit, we discovered that most of the discussion on the platform relates to a security breach it experienced a few years back. Rest assured, Abine was very transparent about the incident and has since worked to patch vulnerabilities. 

Is the Blur Cost Worth It?

Blur is more expensive than other online password manager services out there.

That said, its masking features are great, so we believe the extra cost is worth it.

If you want a complete cyber security suite, Blur is an excellent choice.

Abine Blur Alternative Services

Now, let’s see how other password managers compare to Blur.

Blur vs Lastpass

Lastpass is one of the most reputable password managers out there. Its big advantage is the business plans it offers.

So, if you want password management without the extras—or a business plan—Lastpass is great. If you want the extra masking features, however, Blur is the obvious choice. 

Blur vs RoboForm

Roboform is one of the best offline password managers. Extra features aside, this is the big difference between the two. Blur is browser-based, which means it’s great for online privacy.

So, if you’re interested in keeping your offline storage private, you’re better off with RoboForm.

Blur vs Dashlane

Dashlane is perhaps the best cross-platform password manager. It’s currently shifting to a web-first model, so it’s similar to Blur in that respect. But it also offers dark web monitoring and a pretty good VPN.

When choosing between the two, consider that Dashlane is best for pure password management whereas Blur is best for its masking features.

Final Verdict

That’s a wrap on our Blur password manager review!

To conclude, we’d like to emphasize the coverage Blur provides for online payments, emailing, and even phone calls.

While these features make it pricier than the average password manager, it’s worth it if you’re serious about keeping your ecommerce activities private.