Anyone and everyone who uses Internet regularly would be aware of the importance of passwords. The chances are high that your passwords are a lot weaker than you think.
Considering the number of different websites, we use these days, it has become imperative to have some system for creation and remembering of passwords used on each one of these platforms. There is a wide selection of password managers software providers, each one of them introduces tonnes of features. This might create a confusion when coming to choose the one you. If you are new to this field or just not a tech savvy person, review sites like Best Online Reviews are a good starting point for you. Those sites already did the heavy lifting for you and filtered the information you need to make a smart decision.
Let’s now talk about the passwords-related issues and why you should be using an efficient password manager.
Issues with passwords
The most untraceable and biggest problem with the use of passwords is that they exist! Many online businesses, including Google, are actually working on ways to get rid of passwords altogether. Passwords are used for the same reason that locks are used on the doors. There are bad people out there who want to exploit digital assets for their own selfish needs.
However, if you look closely you would observe that passwords aren’t actually very good at stopping bad people and hackers. In fact, there is a section of Internet users who actively advocate allocation of resources for catching criminals, rather than forcing them to put locks on their digital doors. On the whole, it’s an inconvenience for the user as the bad guys still find a workaround.
Secondly, effective passwords can’t be memorised easily. It could still be workable if there were just one password for one type of service. But ask any average Internet user and he/she would have at least 15 to 25 passwords.
At best, you can remember no more than 3 to 4 strong passwords. Any more and you would be forced to pen them down and file them somewhere. And once you’ve committed your passwords to a digital location or paper, they become vulnerable. You could also use a system, for instance, replacing the 0s with O, but the issue is that any system worth its salt can be bettered by someone else with a good computer.
At core, the only strong passwords are the kinds that can’t be remembered easily.
About password managers
Using a good password manager, you can easily turn all your vulnerable passwords into the strong kinds, that don’t need to be remembered. The software will take care of that aspect. You’d only be required to maintain and remember one password. Almost all password managers abide by this rule. Some of them provide keystroke inception, one-click login and automatic password locking whenever the user steps away from the system.
About managing the password managers
The fact that you must entrust all your sensitive passwords to a software that creates and stores your password on third-party remote servers might seem unnerving to many. Unless you use the inbuilt password manager of Apple, you’d be asked to pay an annual/monthly fee for using such services.
Your passwords can be synced across different web browsers with the help of cloud services. But what about the applications? The transition from a web browser to a desktop/mobile environment may not be all that seamless and easy. The passwords stored for your account with a website on your desktop computer may not populate inside the corresponding app on your Android phone/device. There’s still a need to manage the password manager at some level.
However, on the whole, it’s better to use a password manager than having none. Eventually, it’s all about keeping the bad people away. And password managers can help you do that to a great extent.
