What’s the one thing that every program, piece of software or account you have or use online has?
A password.
Your password’s job is obvious – to keep people from being able to access your account which contains personal information, and in many cases, access to your money.
So it should go without saying that the strength of your password is important. Creating a password like:
- password
- abc123
- yourname
… isn’t going to cut it. It’s just too easy for a hacker to get into your account.
Instead, your password should be more complex than this, consisting of a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. For example:
- Ax74_dTRW#2@@
- IlovePlugThingsIn.com#1
- BlueAndRedFlowers
… are all way better passwords to use.
What’s more is that you should be using a different password for each account. The primary reason for this is so that if one password is figured out, the hacker can’t take that password and gain access to all of your accounts.
The problem or inconvenience here, is that coming up with complex passwords can be difficult, and remembering them is even harder.
Luckily, there are password management programs that can handle this sort of stuff for us.
1. KeePass ( http://keepass.info/ )
KeePass is a free, open source password manager. You can generate a password using a variety of symbols, numbers and letters for each of your accounts. These are all kept safe under one master password that gives you access to the entire database. Available only on Windows.
2. LastPass ( https://lastpass.com/ )
LastPass is a free password manager and form filler. It’s compatible with numerous devices including Windows, Mac, Android, Apple and Blackberry smart phones and tablets and all the major browsers.
LastPass will generate passwords for each of your accounts, accessible by one master password. Where LastPass shines, though, is that it will fill out each of your forms and login fields for you. You can even save profiles depending on the information you wish to use — home, business, different users, etc.
3. RoboForm ( http://www.roboform.com/ )
RoboForm is another option for password management and filling out forms. Unlike the options above, however, it only includes a free trial. You can buy RoboForm for each individual device for $30 ($20 at a discount with multiple purchases), or you can spend $9.99 per year for RoboForm on every device it’s compatible on.
RoboForm is compatible on Windows, Mac and Android devices.