People are, frankly, terrible about choosing passwords. I understood this to be part of the transition to the digital age for a long time, but it’s 2025. Who’s still using “password” as their password? Or “12345?”
That isn’t just like leaving your key under the welcome mat outside your home. It’s more like installing a doggie door the size and shape of a human. Remembering a good password is hard, I know. If it’s secure, it’s probably tough to remember. You just need a password manager.
the benefits of a password manager
A password manager is a digital vault that holds the keys to all your accounts and websites. Each key, or password, is uniquely generated and highly secure. They can be incredibly long and complex, which means they’re much harder for a hacker to crack and much, much harder for a person to guess.
You just need a master password to access the password manager. Then when you come to a form on a website or app that asks for your log-in information and password, you just click in the empty field. As long as you’ve made an entry in the password manager for that account, containing its email address and/or username and password, it’ll automatically enter the information. It’s nearly seamless, and it works well enough that I’ve been using Dashlane daily since 2016.
The only password manager of these five I’ve highlighted here that I haven’t used (yet) is NordPass. I’m a fan of NordVPN, though, and I’m convinced of its security and transparency, given that it regularly opens up access to its VPN for independent auditors to verify that everything is secure and on the level.
Most password managers have a free trial, so give one a try. As in now. Don’t bookmark this tab and forget to ever come back to it. Just download one of these and give it a whirl. It’s worth a few bucks per month to buy yourself the peace of mind.
The post Download One of These Apps to Stop Using Your Crappy, Unsafe Passwords appeared first on VICE.
