Password Managers

I’ve encountered far too many people who either use very weak passwords or write them on sticky notes where they may be easily retrieved, especially by someone else. I remember one case where the username and password for signing into Windows were taped onto a laptop, and that laptop was used when traveling!

The reason people do things like this is that they won’t remember strong passwords like those recommended. For example, what is easier to remember, France2008 or Ud(3&lsUk)iL!3M2#? Of course, the former password is easier to remember than the latter, so that is the password that would most likely be used by someone. However, it is also much easier to guess or crack.

So, how can you use a strong password that you are going to remember and do so for the many online accounts that you have? A strong password is one that is very difficult to guess or crack. The answer is to use a password manager for your passwords instead of sticky notes or easy ones. A password manager will enable you to use one strong password to access all the passwords of your online accounts and even some desktop applications.

A password manager is like a vault for all of your passwords and other sensitive information. You only need to remember one strong password to access all of the passwords in the vault. That one password should be a strong one because it would be foolish to use a weak password for the vault.

This means that you do not need to remember any of the passwords for your online accounts because the password manager will remember them for you. Therefore, you can make up crazy strong passwords for your accounts and simply let the password manager remember them.

The password managers that I have worked with in the past also will generate random strong passwords for you. That means you don’t even have to take the time to come up with one on your own. How convenient is that?

I have used several password managers over the years, most recently LastPass and RoboForm. Of these two, RoboForm is the one that I stuck with, probably because I have used it the longest and because of recent updates to it. RoboForm can also store usernames/passwords for some desktop applications, credit card numbers, identities (name, address, phone numbers), Wi-Fi passwords, software license keys, and more.

RoboForm can be installed on your desktop PC, laptop, tablet, or mobile phone. This means that you always have access to your passwords. You can also use RoboForm simply to look up passwords if for some reason you need to manually enter them (e.g., signing into an online resource using someone else’s PC).

The bottom line is that you should be using a password manager and Roboform is a good one to use. I’ve been using it for over ten years. You should not use weak and easy-to-remember passwords for your online resources. Using strong passwords will help to protect those resources by making them difficult to crack. A password manager is an effective solution for maintaining strong passwords for our many online resources and not having to remember them all.