It’s a hassle to keep track of multiple passwords, but using the same one all the time is dangerous, especially when it comes to your online privacy. It’s never been more important to ensure that your online presence is secure and safe from prying eyes, as many employees still work from home.
A password manager is a digital vault where you can store the passwords you use to log in to apps, websites, and other services on your mobile device, tablet, or computer. Your identity, credentials, and sensitive data are safe with the best password managers because they have a password generator built in, which makes it easy to come up with strong, unique passwords and prevents you from using the same password in multiple places at once. There has been a lot of talk recently about identity theft and security breaches, and having unique passwords for each location can help keep your passwords safe. You’re basically creating your own security features by employing multiple passwords.
In addition, if you use a manager, you won’t have to juggle a slew of login details like shipping addresses and credit card numbers. Filling out forms or logging into a password field can be done with just one master password (or a PIN or your fingerprint). Some also include online storage and an encrypted vault for archiving files.
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Bitwarden
Bitwarden is the best password manager for because of its open-source roots and its unlimited free version. You can generate, store, and automatically fill your passwords across all of your devices and popular browsers with this lightweight encryption software.
There are some limitations to the free version, but the paid versions are just as feature-rich. It’s similar to the offerings of Bitwarden’s closest competitors in that a premium subscription gives you the ability to share your passwords, logins, and memberships with friends and family you can trust. Bitwarden’s free version includes a one-to-one texting feature called Bitwarden Send that allows you to securely share login information with another person.
LastPass
As a password manager, LastPass was once the best because it allowed you to store passwords, user login information and credentials, and sync all of it across your mobile devices or browsers.
As a premium user, you can share passwords and other sensitive information such as account information with trusted family members or friends, use multifactor authentication with YubiKey, and get 1 gigabyte of encrypted storage. The Families plan, on the other hand, provides six individual accounts, shared folders, and a dashboard for managing the accounts and keeping an eye on the security of your account.
LastPass isn’t perfect: Passwords could be compromised as a result of a vulnerability privately reported in September 2019. However, the vulnerability was patched before anyone outside of the company was aware of it. Since its inception, LastPass has been plagued by numerous security flaws.
1Password
With 1Password, you can log into all of your online accounts and services with just a single master password, making it the most secure password manager available. Every major mobile platform is supported. Travel mode protects your 1Password data from border checks by removing it from your device when you travel and restoring it with a single click when you return.
On Mac and iOS operating systems, you can use Touch ID to unlock 1Password, and on iOS devices you can also use Face ID to unlock the password vault. It costs $60 a year for a family of five to use a single password manager app that allows them to share passwords, credit card information, and anything else with each other. Each user has their own personal password vault, making it simple to manage who has access to your data and what they can do with it.
Dashlane
Dashlane provides a simple and secure way to store and manage your passwords and other login information. Dashlane is a great password manager, but the free version only allows you to use it on one device and store 50 passwords. The $60 Premium plan from 1Password and LastPass is comparable. Up to six individual accounts are permitted in the $90 Family subscription plan.
Keeper
You can use Keeper to keep track of your passwords on any of your operating systems, including Windows, MacOS, Android, or iOS. Only one password can be stored at a time in the free version of the app. It costs $35 a year for the upgraded version, which allows you to sync passwords across multiple devices. Dark web monitoring and secure file storage are also available for about $59 a year.