Password Managers

[foothillfanatic]

Due to recent internet security breaches I was looking into commercially available password managers/protection options. One such service is 1Password, but when I read more about it, it seemed quite complicated and I wasn't sure I could manage it. I was wondering if others had found ways to improve the strength of their passwords in a more simplified way? Thanks for any feedback or referral to other sources of help.

 

[ardchoille]

I use pwsafe, available in the App Store. It's a password manager that uses iCloud to sync passwords and other items between your devices. You only need remember one master password to unlock the safe, and then your other passwords are readily available to you. pwsafe can also create a local safe - available only on local devices without the sync feature.

 

[twerppoet]

1Password is a powerful app, but it is not terribly hard to use. The extra features do not intrude on the basic ability to create, edit, and retrieve your passwords and other secure information.

The very best apps are like that. Easy to use for a beginner, but extra power waiting in the wings for when you're ready.

And they supply good support and tutorial pages, so it's not hard to learn the extras.

http://www.manula.com/manuals/agilebits/1password-4-for-ios/4/en/topic/welcome-to-1password-for-ios

 

[LannyC]

Last week, I was having the same thoughts. I've been using Data Guardian on both Mac and iPad for years, but it's just a database to store credentials, and doesn't interact with browsers, which makes periodic password changing an order of magnitude more bother. I looked primarily at 1Password and LastPass.

I was initially considering the open-source Keepass, but it's a kludgy geek thing that requires several other third-party programs to make it work on a non-Windows computer. Well, allegedly work: after two failed installations, it finally stayed alive long enough to see how much more work I'd need to invest to get my existing passwords into it. If that floats your boat, go for it, but it's more complicated than I choose to accept.

1Password and LastPass are quite comparable in features, but LastPass is free for Mac, $12/year to synch over their cloud to iPad. 1Password costs about 3X that for both devices. Online reviews seem evenly split between the two apps. I went with LastPass, and spent several hours yesterday swapping about a hundred wimpy passwords for new random 15-characters strings, all unique. It sucked the old passwords out of my iMac's Firefox security file to get me started. So far, it's worked flawlessly. As a bonus, my preferred iOS browser, Mercury, includes a button to insert passwords from the LastPass database with one tap. No typing passwords! The only password I still need to remember is the one for LastPass itself. IIRC there's a Windows version as well.

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[foothillfanatic]

Thanks for the feedback on password managers, they were very helpful. Because I use three devices(iPad and two pc's) to access sites that require passwords do I then need to purchase three of the same password managers, one for each device?

 

[LannyC]

With 1Password, yes. Their website store has pricing.

With LastPass, all the clients are free, but the cloud subscription that ties all your devices to the same database costs $12 per year.

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[foothillfanatic]

With 1Password, yes. Their website store has pricing. With LastPass, all the clients are free, but the cloud subscription that ties all your devices to the same database costs $12 per year. This post handcrafted from 100 percent post-consumer recycled electrons.

Thanks!