Password manager

[Rand]

ok so the important ones appear to be sync(?), cloud backup, and two factor auth.

kind of odd to not allow 2 factor unless you pay.. seems backwards for security.

I'll check it out.. my lastpass actually tried to renew last night.. and was on an expired CC.. so I have until 8/16 to make a decision.

 

[BHopkins]

Right now I have an Excel sheet. Not sure that is the best method either. A fireproof box with a notebook is probably best. Still annoying though, quick check and I seem to have accumulated some 50 different logins to various sites.

Someone in IT at work shared an article with me that said the best passwords were actually sentences. Something like "My dog Rover died when he was 18." Easy to remember because it's not random, yet it hits most or all of the requirements of a strong password. I have not been able to use that but I've been wondering if that won't be usable in the future. Not sure if that can't simplify this problem for me--or if it'll make it worse, having to remember 50 different sentences...

For now I just copy and paste out of Excel--too many breaches for me to have any trust in any service out there.

I also use an Excel spreadsheet. While my passwords for different sites are unique, they have a common content with a unique prefix.

The method you learned from an IT person is similar to what an IT friend of mine taught me. In his method, you use the first letter of each word in a line to a song, or a line of a quote or from a book. If we used your example, "My dog Rover died when he was 18", the password would be MdRdwhw18. I introduce characters and numbers by changing certain letters. For example, you could change an a to @, or I to 1 and any S to a $ sign. As you can see, a password made with this method becomes a set of totally random characters. And the cool thing is, you don't have to remember your password, but only the phrase.

If you are a religious person, holy scripture, such as the Holy Bible, is full of lines that are easy to remember and make great passwords. For example, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" could become 1tbGct4@te. A lot more effective than Asdfghkl. Anyone recognize that password? A lot of people use it.

 

[supton]

Some good info there.

How often are people typing passwords? I just realized I have to type my password in twice a day for work, once to log into my computer and once for VPN. Most other passwords are once and forget, save PIN's for personal devices.

 

[Donald]

No one here mentioned 1PASSWORD. Maybe I should go back to LastPass.

 

[spackard]

I have 400 passwords, most 12 chars, randomly-generated; some 8 chars, some 16 chars.
LastPass.
Company I work for disables all password managers, and all browsers' password remember caches. Not fun.
(Chrome comes with a password manager, FYI.)

 

[JGmazda]

Try KeePass. It's open source, cross-platform, and uses a common database format. And, importantly for an open source project, there is a steady development effort supporting it.

If you have a Mac, KeePassXC is better then KeePassX.

^^^ What he said ^^^

 

[Pew]

I either use LastPass, but only started very recently. All my passwords are based off a math equation and specific words.

 

[whosmatt]

Keepass user for years now. Cross platform; I use it on Windows, Linux, and MacOS as well as on iPad and Android. It's not all the same application but it's the same database. I use KeepassXC on Windows and Linux these days but you have a few choices of client.

 

[alarmguy]

Good call! A big advantage over LastPass is that Roboform can also (import and) keep your bookmarks. I use a combo of Firefox, Opera, Edge and Chrome on Ubuntu, Windows, Android and iOS and was wishing for a solution like this!

EDIT: And Roboform's form-filling capabilities are far and above beyond LastPass.

I had never head of this prior to your post, alarmguy - Thanks!

Very cool, glad its working out good for you and good what you need.
Originally I tried it because of a multi year deal I was offered, its now been a couple years, cant imagine not having it anymore.
For fun I have tried Lastpass and maybe one other, just wasnt happy.

I really dont use all the features of RoboForm, maybe someday I will, I just love having access to my passwords no matter where I am in the country and no matter what device I am using. iPhone, Android, Mac Desktop or Windows Laptop. Its not the everyday passwords I care about, even though I have those too, but some of the odd stuff, that you never seem to have when you need it.
Health Ins Plan, Home Ins, Car Ins, Work related stuff, shopping sites, its just endless for me because everything I do is online, endless others where over time you are forced to change your password. Anyway, that is the value in it for me, I love the way I can manage my information.

So more or less I use it as a "notebook" "vault" of all my passwords, accessible anyplace I have internet and any computer I can log into my account on any web browser on anyones computer, that is golden to me for those times I need one.

RoboForm has been around for decades, maybe as far back as floppy disc's ?
I suspect being its name isnt catchy is why many never heard of it, but at the time of researching all of this, I found a following of "professionals" who have used it for a very long time and what convinced me at the time.

 

[alarmguy]

I have 400 passwords, most 12 chars, randomly-generated; some 8 chars, some 16 chars.
LastPass.
Company I work for disables all password managers, and all browsers' password remember caches. Not fun.
(Chrome comes with a password manager, FYI.)

This maybe irrelevant for you but a cloud based password manager would work for you. You just log into your account with any browser and can look up the password you need. Then again obviously your company doesnt want you doing personal stuff at work yet you can look up your password on any web browser.