If you follow the basic rules of password creation, remembering passwords that you use online is a pain.
Basic rules are:
- Do not use the same password for multiple sites.
- Do not use something readily identifiable to you, such as pet’s name, spouse’s name, street name, birthday, etc.
- Do not use easy number combinations, like 1111.
- Do make the the password longer rather than shorter. The more the digits the better.
- Use a random combination of numbers and letters (and punctuation), and include lower and upper case letters.
I use a free software, LastPass, that both creates random passwords for me, and remembers them across the various computers I use. Here’s how to use it:
- Use Google’s Chrome browser
- Install the LastPass Chrome extension (how to install Google Chrome extensions) on the computers under your control. You will end up with a little LastPass icon to the right of the URL location bar.
- Use LastPass to generate and store passwords. The interface is very intuitive.
- Make sure to create a random password, consistent with the guidelines above, to enable your logging into LastPass. That password you’ll need to remember!
You can also use LastPass with Firefox and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. I find Chrome to provide a more stable, secure browsing environment (though note that some web developers do not always produce sites that render well in each of these three mainstream browsers – shame on them!).
Paid upgrades allow smart phone use and additional functionality.
