What is a Password Manager?

Passwords are frustrating, but security is essential, especially when securing your online finances. Password managers are nifty tools that allow you to create complex passwords without ever needing to remember them.

How is that possible, you ask — don’t you need to recall the passwords you create? Not exactly; we’ll explain just how password managers can transform your digital experience into something a whole lot safer with only a bit more effort.

What Is a Password Manager?

A password manager is a piece of software that allows you to create, store and easily recall saved passwords. But the aspect of password managers that makes them so helpful is their ability to operate without you needing to remember more than a single password.

Think of a password manager as a bank vault that holds all the login credentials to your favorite sites. To access the password vault, you only need to remember one master password so that you won’t get tied up with an endless list of passwords scribbled down on a notepad or stored in your phone’s notes app.

Because you only need to remember a single password to get into your vault, you can make your actual passwords for logging into services very secure. For example, instead of using a poor password such as your birthday or “CorgiLover27!”, you can use strong passwords like “uaE*[email protected]“

Don’t panic though, you’d never actually have to remember that password, so don’t be startled at its complexity. Password managers integrate seamlessly with your favorite web browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Edge, etc.) thanks to browser extensionsas well as your mobile devices, so passwords can be auto-filled when needed.

A scenario will look similar to the following: You start by visiting your online bank of choice and clicking on the ‘Sign In’ button. Your password manager will automatically notice that you are attempting to log into a website.

The password manager will then prompt…