We had a lively conversation about password management this week on the Facebook page. Check out what your peers recommend.
First, I love what Carol Hamilton had to say about passwords in general:
A professional hacker (on the good side) said longer passwords are better, even if they are not as complex as short ones. Suggested using an entire sentence or phrase with a capital letters, numbers or symbols in it rather than an 8-character complex password.
Most Popular Answer: LastPass
LastPass is my favorite, and several of you agree. Melissa Heeke, Julie Robertson Taylor, Linda Kupferschmid, Sandra Giarde, Chad Jane Hainline, Lisa Braithwaite, plus these guys…
- Bonnie Jo Davis:
Thanks to you I use LastPass but I keep my master password written down in a secret place. - Heather Johnston:
It has saved me a thousand times. - Mike Pennington
Have just switched to LastPass. But have also been happy with Dashlane in the past.
Great Alternatives: Dashlane, Passwords Plus, 1Password, Roboform
Dashlane is also a popular tool. Susan Patereau loves it. Shelly Redd uses SecureSafe, and Maria Stevens uses Passwords Plus. Mike Wilson added his favorite: “1Password! Can’t live without it!” And Michael Anderson said the almost the exact same thing about his favorite: “Roboform and I love it!”
Chad Lawson mentioned another favorite:
We use 1Password at home to be able to have his/hers/ours passwords in different vaults with the ours vault shared. It includes a note of what medications to which she is allergic for emergencies.
Password-Protected (and Not) Documents
Gail Kulp uses Google Docs (but didn’t say anything about it being password protected. Christine McMichael does the same, but may be adding some security based on a peer’s recommendation. “Nothing fancy or uber secure… just OneNote. Appreciate Tracy Taraski’s comment below about password protecting the passwords. I should do that.” (Pssst…. Christine, I agree J. )
And here’s Tracy’s wise words:
Hey Beth… I use One Notes. Nothing fancy, just added a section to my personal notebook and password protected it… plus, I can access it on my laptop, iPad and iPhone! Cool stuff.
“Joe N Carolyn Hook” (not sure if it was Joe or Carolyn) said they use a Word doc that is password protected.
And then there’s my buddy Bill Robie, who said he uses, “A ratty old spiral bound notebook. If I lose it I’ll kill myself.” Oh, Bill. Sigh.
I do not need to record my passwords, but I can remember all of them. The first half of my password is always the same. It is a name and birthdate of someone important to me – the first letter is capital and the last letter is capital. (Example: Dave1$). The second half of my password is the capitalized initials of the site the password is for (Example: LI). So my example password for the Linked In website would be Dave1$LI. Since the only thing that changes on my passwords is the 2nd half, it is easy to remember all of them.