In the digital era we live in, there is always a need for security, and in the era we live in the passwords are used nearly for everything that you need to get access to. Blogs,Forums,Games, Social Networks, Instant Messengers etc, you name it! Now if you want to keep your game,bank and other accounts secure, your best chance is to use strong password. How do I know which password is good? Probably not the password like “ilovedonuts”(Unless you are Homer Simpson), but something more cryptic like: @#T2t$@R2. However since the average user today uses about 20-25 websites and not counting the game accounts, we assume that those which are more educated will go for the cryptic passwords. But the logical problem with them that comes on your mind is: How am I going to remember something which isn’t logical? Sure if it was just one password which you used for something where you don’t want anyone to get access to that, and used the one same password across other things. (If they are just temporary accounts there isn’t a lot to worry about, but if someone gained the access to the user information by hacking the place, and tried to access your email address with the same password you used on the board, you are in a big trouble. If you are using the multiple unlogical passwords, you would want to store them somewhere. (No, writing them down is not good idea, you would risk getting your folks to become addicted with your games, thus by playing and mastering the game skills, they would outperform you one day which is a little shameful for a gamer.)KeePass and LastPass are two thing to prevent those two things of happening. LastPass is addon for Firefox,IE,Chrome,Opera. There is also all in one Windows application which does the same thing like addons, but adding the addon to all of your installed browsers and giving you shortcut on the desktop.The neat thing is that the option for auto-fill and auto-login makes any possible key-logging useless. Everything is encrypted and stored on their servers, and the password are all transferred and stored with additional encryption. Useful when you want to access your passwords anywhere at anytime.
KeePass takes a different approach by being the offline password vault. You can still use the KeePass for logging into the websites via keyboard shortcuts. The program will offer you to create new profile and add different levels of protections. Mine are basically, the password needed for opening the fault and unique key you saved earlier if you made it at all. When you enter you can add different passwords for basically anything. There is also a portable version which does the same thing but it is more for the users which frequently relocate, but need to have access to their passwords any time at any place. The professional version, requires .NET , the normal version doesn’t, but it also has more features than the normal version.
If you are going to trip and you need to keep all you passwords handy on the USB flash drive,without installing any plugin, use KeePass. Good for both home and on the fly use.
If you are staying somewhere for a longer time install the addon on your separate Windows User Account and use it. Best for the the home use. Not so good for using it on the different PC’s which aren’t yours.
How do you keep your passwords safe? What’s your opinion about these two? Feel free to share opinion with us and other readers.
