Almost everything that you do on a computer, from banking to blogging to checking your email, requires that you prove your identity. Using one password for all the websites you visit, as many people do, is dangerous, especially if that password is used
for your banking website.
If someone gets hold of your password they could gain access to your bank account. For security reasons, it is therefore wise to keep your Internet banking password totally unrelated to any other passwords.
Password managers have become very popular. They are a secure way of managing all off your passwords. PCmag.com
has released a list of the best password managers for 2015. Here’s a list of the top free password apps.
Master password
A password app stores your passwords and personal information in an encrypted file which is accessible only through the use of a unique master password. Only you know this master password. The proviso, of course, is that you must use the master password for the password app and nowhere else!
In this way, your personal data and various accounts are kept secure. Many password managers will generate and store unique, complicated passwords that are difficult for hackers to crack. By generating passwords, saving them in encrypted files and organising your accounts for you, password managers save time and headaches and protect you from problems such as identity theft.
Advantages
A password manager saves you from the sheer difficulty of having to remember all your passwords – or else the nuisance of keeping them in a little black book. It saves time and trouble – there is just one unique strong master password that allows secure access to the rest of the passwords.
Finally, the system offers the benefit of filling in your usernames and passwords automatically when you go to your account websites. Clifford Stoll (author, known for his pursuit of hacker Markus Hess) says: “Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don’t let anybody else use it, and get a new one every six months.”
