How to Use a Password Manager
There are tons of password managers on the market, but we think that LastPass is one of the best in the market. There are many good reasons for it, including that it is open source, it is actively developed and maintained, it is based on OpenLDAP, and it supports OpenVPN.
So, how to use it? What are the most common use cases? This article is intended to give you some ideas.
LastPass is free to use and it is available for both desktop and mobile.
You can sign up for a free account or for a premium one. Premium gives you additional features and unlimited storage for your passwords. You can switch from one to the other with a single click.
Getting started with LastPass
First of all, you will need to get an account at lastpass.com. It is a fairly simple process, as it is only necessary to provide your email address, a password, and your birth date.
Note: You can also get an account using Facebook or Google, but LastPass recommends that you do not use them.
After you have an account, you will need to create a master password. You can use any password you like, but you should make it strong. You can use any of the below methods to generate a strong password:
Guess a strong password: LastPass will give you a password that is very close to your master password, with one slight difference. It will use a combination of random letters and numbers, and it will try to be different from the letters and numbers in your master password.
Use a strong password generator: You can use a password generator such as the one on Password Generator.
Open your browser and navigate to lastpass.com.
Next, you will need to add a new site. This is easy to do, as you will just need to click on Add a Site.
The next step is to create your first password. You will need to provide a login, a password, and a description. You can choose from a list of options.
Note: For your convenience, we have listed some of the more common options below:
- Login: This is your username
- Password: This is your password
- Site: This is the URL of your site
- Description: This is a brief description of your site
Use your browser's back button to navigate to your password. You will be prompted to confirm the description, and then to confirm the password.
You can now enter a new site by clicking on Add a Site.
How To Use This Password Creation Tool
Step One: Choose the Character Sets to be used in generating your passwords.
The options are Uppercase Letters, Lowercase letters, Numbers, Symbols and four specially selected lists of words. Select the character sets you want included in your passphrase by placing a check next to it. Uncheck any you do not want to use.
Step Two: Select the length of your password
You can select a passphrase length between 9 characters and 63 characters long. If you want a password of slightly random length you can set the minimum and maximum length to the range you would like it to fall betwee. If you want a specific length, simply slide the Min Length and Max Length sliders to the same length. If you select 22 for the Min Length and 26 for the Max Length the algorithm will keep adding characters or words onto the end of the new passphrase until it reaches the Max Length if it is not already the minimum length.
Step Three: Click the refresh arrows in the text box at the top of the page to generate your most secure password.