More on managing your passwords
I recently posted about the need for strong passwords for all your Web accounts. A good password manager is essential unless you have a memory like a computer and I previously mentioned the free program LastPass. This program has been getting so many favorable reviews that I am going to bring it up again. For example, Neil Rubenking of PCMag has a review.
Personally, I have been using another good program, Roboform, for years and it continues to be the choice of many but one advantage of LastPass is that you can access your passwords from any computer by using a master password. Of course, that means that your passwords are stored on the computer at LastPass. Rubenking discusses the possible drawbacks to this:
One big difference between LastPass and the rest is that it stores your form-fill and password data online. RoboForm Pro 6.3 will eventually have a similar feature, but it’s still in beta. On the plus side, that means you can access your data from any browser. On the worrisome side, that means that this sensitive data is stored on somebody else’s server. LastPass goes to great lengths to explain why this is safe: While your data is in storage and during transmission across the Web, it remains protected by 256-bit AES encryption. The data gets decrypted only on your local system, using a strong master password that only you know. This is a small company that’s taking on more established vendors. What if they don’t survive? What if new-found popularity overloads their servers so you can’t connect with your data? Don’t worry. If the servers are offline you won’t be able to add or edit login data, but your local copy of LastPass keeps its own cached copy of the encrypted data.
In another article, Rubenking says he has switched from Roboform to LastPass:
As part of my job, I’m constantly connecting with new and different Web sites, many of which require some kind of registration. I’m way worse than the average user as far as collecting passwords. Over the past five years or so I’ve saved over 200 passwords in RoboForm. That kind of collection creates a huge inertial drag against changing to any other utility. That is, unless the utility is like LastPass, which handily imported all of my RoboForm passwords without a single glitch. And when I rounded up all of the competition for comparison it beat them hands down. LastPass is my new password manager.
The LastPass site is here.
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I find that the LastPass utility is awesome; I am only a home user, but do much of my shopping and banking online. I have accumulated so very many passwords which can be a real pain to look up occasionally. This program is making my life so much easier already, and I have only used it for one day! I am thinking about subscribing to the paid version to be able to use the “special key function” for extra added security.Thanks for the great tip!