Passwords are a pain, right? Where we once got by with a single easy-to-remember password for everything, we now need separate, complex passwords for each website, social network, and program on our computers. This necessary evil has come to us courtesy of those who will do about anything to gain access to our personal information.
Enter the Password Manager Age. It’s not as sexy as the Jurassic or the more recent Information Age, but it is here and we, just like the dinosaurs in the Jurassic, had better learn to adapt. What’s a poor little homo sapiens to do? We have limited ability to remember precise details over long periods of time, which is why we used one easy password for everything. Solving this problem is simple and inexpensive—it can even be free if you’d like.
About a year ago, we started using 1Password. This password manager works on all platforms, but comes at a price. I was willing to pay the price for our computers because this is the highest rated password manager for Macs. But, what about those mobile devices? That’s where I get a bit annoyed with the guys at 1Password because those aren’t included under our license.
However, I recently came across Dashlane, another password manager that is free for all devices. Dashlane has fewer bells and whistles than 1Password, but certainly appears capable of doing the job for our mobile devices (and computers for many people). I’m still testing out Dashlane, but in the near future, we’ll probably be running Dashlane on the mobile devices and 1Password on the Macs. If you suffer from “password angst,” why not check out the various options? Here’s a ranking of password managers to help you get started.
