Too Many Passwords!

ByMike Moffit

Most of us have been using the Internet for many years, and have created accounts with hundreds of different Internet services. After a certain point, one cannot reasonably be expected to remember the passwords to all of their different accounts, especially since many websites have different requirements for password complexity. Having to remember too many different passwords is a common frustration we see here at Small Dog.

This is a problem inherent in the username/password system. When the system was introduced decades ago, no one anticipated having to remember hundreds of different usernames and passwords. Other methods for authentication, like biometrics, have slowly become supported by more and more hardware and software developers, like Apple’s Touch ID, however there is still no viable system for authentication that can be used by virtually any device, so username/password has remained the most dominant method.

The best solution to the problem of having too many passwords is to install a password manager. A password manager is an application that securely stores a users passwords, so that only one password is required to access any of them.

The password manager I would recommend is LastPass. LastPass offers a desktop application, a browser extension, and a mobile app. A premium account is only $1 per month, and all of the core features are available with a free account. With LastPass, any time you see a password prompt, you only need to enter your LastPass password, and LastPass will find, decrypt, and enter your password to that service.

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