3 reasons to use a password manager
Ah, shoot. What's the password for this website? Ah, is it this? No, incorrect password.
Ah, you modified your password 867 days ago. How about? Could it be that? Ah, incorrect password. Um, what about this? Oh yeah, this is the password I use for so many other sites. Could it be that one? Argh, there has to be a better way. Well, good news, there is. So in this video, I'm going to share with you why you should be using a password manager and sharing with you password manager tools. So let's jump in.
Why should I be using a password manager? Well, here are three key reasons. Number one, you are referencing your password sor you're keeping track of them on pen and paper. Maybe you have a notebook, maybe you have some sticky notes off the side of your desk. This is a big no-no. Number one, of course, it's not that secure.
Someone else who could be visiting your office or walking by your desk could obviously see your passwords. But number two, what are you going to do when you're not near your desk, or you don't have that cheat sheet or that notebook with you? What if you need to log in and access something when you're away from that particular location? You are going to be of no help. Number two, if you keep track of your passwords within a online document, such as Google Keep or a spreadsheet or any other tool that you use. This is also a big no-no. Why? Well, what if someone hacks this particular account, then they have access to all of your passwords, right?
If someone was to access this account, they would see all of my passwords for these particular services. On top of that, it's a big hassle. When I have to go and change any of these passwords, then I got to come back in here and I have to change
and remember to change these passwords here as well. And the third reason why you need a password manager is if you use the same password again and again.
I don't know how many times I meet someone who uses the exact same password,
even though the password itself may be quite strong, a long number of characters, including special characters, numbers, capitalized letters, and everything, but no matter how strong that is, if you're using it for a number of different sites, well, hackers only need to find out the one and then they can go and use that same password to attempt, and probably be very successful, in accessing all of your other accounts.
How a password manager works
So in order to make your life a whole lot simpler and more secure, let's take a look at of my recommendations when it comes to password managers. The first tool that we're going to look at is RoboForm. And really, the RoboForm website gives us all of the key reasons why a password manager is so much more convenient. One click convenience, meaning you don't have to remember your username or the password itself, you can simply click in the field and then log into that service. Multi-platform support. This is going to be essential in all of the tools that we use. So regardless if you're at your desktop, your laptop, or on your mobile device, you can access those passwords. When it comes to security, you want to be able to create stronger passwords, and rather having you come up with something rather difficult, other than just pounding the keys on your keyboard, tools such as RoboForm will create much stronger passwords that you will never have to remember before. Remember, we're letting these software remember these incredibly strong passwords for us so we don't have to. And lastly, the ability to share logins securely. So if you do need to share access with someone else, don't share the password, that's not very secure,
but with password managers, such as RoboForm, you can do so. So let's dive into the RoboForm account
Recommendation 1: Roboform
and let me give you a bit of a tour. So here I am within my RoboForm account. And essentially how most password managers work is that you create one strong master password. And that's the only password that you need to remember and then you can create as many complicated and as strong passwords, or more importantly,
let the password manager itself create those passwords for you, and then they will give you access to those accounts. You remember one master password, that's all you need, and because it's encrypted, you can then safely access all of your other accounts here. So here you can see the collection of tools that I have set up with my RoboForm account. And if I want to log into Todoist, I could come here and say Click to log in, but there's an even simpler way from the screen itself. So here I am within the Todoist log in screen, and the email and password fields are ready for me to enter. But instead of having to remember what I've used, because perhaps I've even forgotten the particular email address that I used for this Todoist account, with the RoboForm extension installed, all I need to do is hover over this logo. I can choose Todoist. Yeah, that's the screen that I'm on. Let's add that there. And now my information is automatically added and I didn't even have to select Log in. It's brought me directly to my Todoist screen. So essentially one click to go exactly where I want to go, and I didn't have to remember my complicated or strong password. The other feature of RoboForm, which I particularly like, is this section called Safenotes. So beyond just logins, when you're accessing information online, you may also need a secure place to keep information, such as pin numbers or a safe combination or maybe just a very detailed note. So, for example, if I want to remember my safe combination here at home, I know that this is encrypted and protected by my master password. So this is so much more secure than writing it down on a piece of paper
or in a tool which is much more open and vulnerable to hacking. Now you can use RoboForm for free, but if you'd like to use RoboForm everywhere, I have a special offer just for Simpletivity viewers. By clicking the link in the description down below, you can get RoboForm everywhere for less than $17 a year. For more information, be sure to click that link down below.
Recommendation 2: LastPass
Next up, let's take a look at how easy it is to create new, stronger passwords when you're first setting up an account. So here I am trying to sign up for the ClickUp service, and I have LastPass installed on my machine. So I've already filled out my name and my email address, but now when it comes to choosing a password, what am I going to do? Use something that I've used everywhere else and make myself vulnerable to hackers or to leaking information? No. With LastPass installed and with many of the other tools that we're looking at today, you can see this little icon here,
which is a little bit of a lock with a arrow around it. So I'm going to click on that, and it's going to offer me a strong password. So here you can see I've got a collection
of letters and numbers, some are capitalized, some are not. I would never come up with this on my own, but if I don't like it, I can generate something else. Okay, let's go with that. And I'm going to say FILL PASSWORD. So now, not only is it added, but up in the top right, it's going to include that information. It's asking me, "Should we add this to LastPass?? I'm going to say yes, add. And now it's locked in my LastPass safe. So after I continue to create this account, and now have a login, I'm never going to have to remember this very strong and unique password. All I need to do is access this LastPass icon and it will fill it in for me. Now while the layout of the LastPass interface
is very different from what we saw in RoboForm, many of the same features are still available to us. And just like in RoboForm, if we need to go and see further information, so if you ever need to reference the name, the username, or the actual site password, you can do so here. You can see that by default, the site password will be hidden, but if you need to see it, we can hit that eye icon, and here we can see this incredibly strong and secure password for this particular site. We can even add some advanced notes down below
Recommendation 3: Dashlane
if we want to. Now the third password manager that I like to recommend is Dashlane.
And yes, it has many of the same features, which we've seen already, but one of the added advantages of a password manager is the ability to access this information directly from your browser or browser extension window. So here, for example, using the Dashlane account, I can quickly and easily access these sites. In fact, you can almost use it as a secondary bookmarking system, if you want to go directly to those pages. Dashlane also has the option to autofill certain information and you can customize in terms of what it will autofill. Do you want it to autofill your name, and address, and phone number, or maybe limited to just log in and passwords, or maybe there are particular websites where you don't want it to autofill information.
Dashlane also has a very robust generator. So if you'd like to use this password for other locations, you can do so. And what I like about this particular setup is you can customize the length. So, for example, maybe I want something super-duper strong.
I'm going to set it to a length of 30. And I can say, if I don't want to include symbols, for example. So here, it's met the requirements that I've set here, but if I don't want to use symbols or maybe I do want to add symbols back in, I can make that choice right here from the browser extension.
Recommendation 4: Bitwarden
Now the last password manager that I like to recommend is Bitwarden, which is a very flexible tool and also very easy to use. And what I want to show you is, when you first log in to any of these password manager services, is how important that master password is and exactly what it does for your account. Now, what makes password managers so secure is that because of their encryption, they actually do not retain information about your master password. Therefore, they can't actually send that master password to you. That's why it's important to not only remember your master password but to include a master password hint, because they can send you a hint, a reminder, maybe to trigger your memory, maybe to trigger some of the key components of that password, so that in the event of you forgetting or having trouble accessing your password manager account, you can regain access. Depending on the password manager service that you are using, they may also have phone support and some additional ways to retrieve your account. But remember, your master password is what's keeping you secure from others accessing all of the other passwords and information contained within. This is a safety feature. This is not meant to make it difficult for you but to make your life both easier, and more importantly, more secure. Now, if you've made it this far into the video, I'd love for you to prove it by including the words strong password in the comments down below.
And while you're there, be sure to ask me a question about passwords or anything related to password managers. And if you enjoyed this video, you might like the other content right here on the Simpletivity channel. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult, in fact, it's very simple.
