I hate remembering passwords! At first maybe it was fun, but that didn’t last long. After you have set up accounts on a few sites, it’s impossible! How do you solve this problem? Do you just use the same password for all sites? Or do you vary the password a little bit here and there? Even then, it’s easy to get confused.
Does it really matter if you use the same password for several different sites? That depends. If it’s for the electric or water company web site, probably not. If someone hacks into your site, the worst they could probably do is pay the bill for you, or publish your bills online.
But there is a real risk when using the same password for two or three bank accounts, especially if you also use the same password for some social media or small-time commercial site. What if somebody hacked that that social media site and got your password? They could immediately go out to all the major bank websites and try the same email/password combination there? If they did that, they could log in and send a payment from your bank account or credit card to themselves! I’ve actually had someone capture the password from my bank account and attempt that. Fortunately, I happened to notice the activity on my account before they were done. Even so, I had to close the account, open a new one, cancel a card, and set up all my payments and account numbers again.
But if you create a different password for every login account, how are you going to remember them all? If you write them down, or put them in a file, or save them on your phone, that’s even worse. If that piece of paper or file or note gets into the wrong hands, they now have all of your passwords. Also, such papers, files or notes tend to get disorganized and outdated over time.
I’ve tried many different “wallet” apps and programs that store passwords. Most of them were much more trouble than they are worth. Although most of them are secure enough to prevent being hacked, there is still a risk of something going wrong where you lose your data. It’s not the end of the world, there is always a way to get the usernames and passwords back using the “lost my password” link, but it’s a lot of wasted time and effort to recreate the record.
A couple of years ago, I started using a program called LastPass. There is a free version, which is perfectly workable, very secure and very easy to use. You just go to www.LastPass.com, sign up, and continue using your computer. Whenever you sign up with a new account somewhere, it automatically detects that you are creating a username/password and saves it for you. Whenever you log into an existing site, or change your password, it does the same. Whenever you get to a log in page that you have been to before, it detects what is going on, and fills in the username and password for you.
It will even create random passwords for you, so you don’t have to imagine new ones each time. I use this feature often when setting up a new account. Maybe I’m strange, but I find it relaxing that there is no way in the world that I could be expected to remember a password like “ZyUF3h3!z”. I never even know the password or try to remember it. I don’t need to, because LastPass fills it in for me whenever needed.
There are also Apps for iPhone and Android, so you always have access to your passwords if ever you need to enter them manually. They are stored securely in the phone, and on your computers, offline, so they are available even when you don’t have internet access.
I also use the program to store lock combinations, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, vehicle identification numbers, passport and driver’s license numbers for myself and my family, even photocopies of important documents. Everything is in there, and accessible to me, and only me, on my phone, on my computer, online or offline. It’s even available directly from the website. All I need to remember is my master username and password for LastPass and everything else I need is there.
The program is not perfect. It sometimes requires a little tweaking here and there to get it working completely automatically, but not very often. Even when it fails to work flawlessly, all of your important information is stored and available. It’s definitely one of the smoothest and easiest programs that I’ve ever worked with.
The phone version doesn’t always fill in passwords for you on Apps. That’s just the nature of software on a phone. Fortunately, many phone Apps use touch ID or will remember passwords for you. At least you can look up the password manually right there on the phone if/when you need it.
I find that it, for certain accounts, it’s handy to use a password that is fairly easy to remember. For these accounts, I will create a password manually and not use the automatically generated random one.
I also like to keep the various accounts organized into categories. This takes a little extra effort once in a while. But if you don’t do it, or if you put off doing it for a long time, it’s not a problem. You can still find any account by searching for any part of the name or userid or password that you remember. Later, whenever you have the time, you can organize things neatly into categories and purge any unneeded accounts.
In the paid version, there are feature to let you share certain passwords with family members, and even give emergency access to a friend or relative if requested, giving them access to your account after a specified amount of time if you don’t respond to the request. I personally use the paid version (which is $24/year), because I like these features. But I started out with the free one, and found it completely usable.
This program is smooth and easy to use, and is free of annoying little quirks that are so common in many programs.
Disclosure: The following is an “affiliate link”. If you purchase a product or service from this company after clicking the link, I will receive a commission, at no cost to you.
Go to the LastPass website and give it a try!
