If your password is “passw0rd” or your last name, you’re putting your data at risk. Those types of passwords are easy to guess for anyone who has access to your computer or for hackers trying to crack into your accounts. Password managers make it easy to use strong passwords, because you don’t have to remember all of your passwords. Password managers and generators help you use complex, unique passwords for every site you login to.
Bitwarden
Bitwarden is a free and open source password management solution for individuals, teams, and business organizations. It works as both a password storage and generator tool. Bitwarden supports syncing between all of your devices, making it easy and convenient to use.
One point Bitwarden makes is that using the same password across all of your accounts is a big security issue. If your password is compromised for one account, a hacker may try your password on other accounts. Password managers make it simple to use complex and unique passwords across the board.
Blur
Blur is a tool that protects your passwords, payment information, and other private information. Beyond just storing and generating your passwords, Blur can create “burner credit cards” to prevent your payment information from being hacked or stolen. It also keeps your passwords in encrypted form until you visit a site or account you’ve visited before. You can use it to auto-fill your login information.
Enpass
Enpass manages passwords, payment information, and other credentials. It’s available for multiple platforms including iOS, Android, Windows, macOS and Chrome OS. Enpass does not store the encryption key to your stored credentials. The encryption key is instead derived from your master password.
With Enpass, your data is stored locally on your device unless you decide to sync your data to the cloud. You can store you Enpass data on the cloud storage provider of your choice and Enpass never stores your data on its servers.
KeePass/KeePassX/KeePassXC
KeePass stores and generates passwords with top-notch security. It’s a free, open source, lightweight and easy-to-use password manager with many extensions and plugins.
KeePassX is a cross-platform password manager. It’s a fork of KeePass originally developed for macOS and Linux, but is currently available for Windows, macOS and Linux.
KeePassXC is an encrypted, cross-platform, open source password manager. It is a community fork of KeePassX. One popular feature of KeePassXC is the auto-type function which makes it faster than simply copying and pasting.
Keeper
Keeper password manager is available for personal, business, and family use. It supports desktop and mobile applications. Along with passwords, Keeper also stores payment information, photos, videos and other files. It has easy-to-use two-step verification that lets you verify your login via smartwatch or fingerprint.
Along with the password manager, Keeper also has an encrypted messenger called KeeperChat.
LastPass
LastPass is available as a browser extension and a native app. For the most security, we recommend using the app version rather than the browser extension. With the app you can access all of your passwords with your fingerprint. It uses AES-256 encryption to keep your passwords hidden. Your data is encrypted locally so that your master password and your encryption keys are never sent to LastPass’ server.
LessPass
LessPass computes a unique password using a site, login and a master password. You don’t need to sync a password vault across every device because LessPass works offline. LessPass works similar to Master Password, it doesn’t store your passwords because the password is generated with your login, master password and the site you’re logging in to.
Master Password
Master Password takes a unique approach to protecting your passwords. Rather than storing your passwords on your device or on the cloud where they could be stolen, Master Password acts like a calculator.
Think of it as, a store-bought calculator. If your name was
1337, your master password was5317and you’d like to log into the site707, take any calculator in the world and type in1337 + 5317 + 707to get the password to use for this site,= 7361.
You can use Master Password software on any device combined with your master password to access your login credentials. The password generated by Master Password is a combination of your name, password and the site you’re logging into. So you don’t have to remember complex information at all.
Password Safe
Password Safe uses a single master password to keep all of your passwords protected, similar to the functionality of most of the password managers on this list. It allows you to store all your passwords in a single password database, or multiple databases for different purposes. Creating a database is simple, just create the database, set your master password.
SuperGenPass
SuperGenPass uses a hash algorithm to transform a master password into unique, complex passwords for the web sites you visit.
SuperGenPass is a bookmarklet and runs right in your Web browser. It never stores or transmits your passwords, so it’s ideal for use on multiple and public computers. It’s also completely free and open-sourced on GitHub.
Read More: 29 Privacy Tools and Products To Protect Your Data
Why You Need a Password Manager
Password theft or hacks happen all the time. The services you use could experience a data breach, or a phishing attack could trick you into sharing your password with a fake web page.
- Stronger Passwords: Having a tool that can generate and store all of your passwords makes it much easier to use strong passwords. Rather than having to remember long, complex strings of letters and numbers, these tools can do that for you.
- Unique Passwords: Similar to how password managers allow you to use strong passwords, they also let you use unique passwords for every one of your accounts. This way if one of your passwords is compromised, the rest of your accounts will still be safe.