Computers and the Internet give us many options for saving time and for conveniently performing tasks which we once had to do on foot. We can: bank online; purchase from just about every company you can think of and some you never even imagined existed; print our own postage; and, stay in touch with friends and relatives quickly via email.
Unfortunately, almost all of these tasks require a password. And, there’s the rub. If you make your password too simple – say “miser1″ for your bank account – you take the risk of having some hacker break into your account. (I would remind you that you should read our tutorial on making passwords secure. You can find that HERE.) If you make your passwords too complicated, you can’t remember them or you can’t find the piece of paper on which you wrote them! (Additionally, if you use the same password for everything, then if you get hacked in one account, you may be hacked in all your accounts.)
So, the dilema is: how do you remember different, yet secure passwords? Over the years, people have asked me about using a program to store their passwords. In the past, I have usually advised against using these programs as I have been concerned about the security of keeping all your passwords in one place. Recently, however, my own passwords have gotten so complicated and have grown so much in number, that I decided I needed to make a change. So, I went researching.
I found what I think is the best and safest password storage software currently available – RoboForm. I purchased it and have used it for about two weeks now. It works in Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox (FF) and Google Chrome. Once you’ve entered all your user names and passwords, the software requires you to remember just one password – the password to get into the software itself – and it will insert user names and those secure passwords at just the click of a button.
There are two features that I really like: 1) by clicking on the “Logins” button on the tool bar, you can choose a site and RoboForm will take you to the site, fill in the information needed and log you in; 2) you can allow the software to create secure passwords for you.
There are other robust features as well. For example, you can set up different profiles so that each computer user can keep their information separate from others on the same machine, etc. Additionally, everything is encrypted so hacking into to your passwords would be a monumental chore, even for the best hackers out there.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email or call me. I really like the way this software works and if you think it sounds like a good idea, too, just click on this banner to get started: