Note! This is a copy and paste of my newsletter entry that was originally posted on Revue (now deprecated).
Hello there, and welcome to another issue of the Dutchie Pot Newsletter. In issue 1, we took a brief look at steps you can take to stay safer online. In this issue, we will be going over Password Managers. What they are, why should you use it, and which one I use every day. Let’s get right into it.
So, what is a Password Manager? Simply put, it is an application that can assist you with creating, editing and storing your usernames and passwords. It helps to make your life much easier by abstracting away the need to remember multiple passwords for your online accounts. Pretty cool right? Not to mention, you can also use it to store the answers to the security questions for your accounts.
Note: Please stop using your personal information for security questions.
Okay, so which password manger do I use? Well, I use Bitwarden. It is free and open sourced. This means, anyone can go take and look at the underlying codebase for bugs and issues if they wished to. Why does this matter, though? Well, with more eyes on the codebase, then there is a greater opportunity to discover issues and help them fix it. Though it is free, I have opt’ed for the premium plan, which is only $10 per year. You can get some additional features on the paid plan, but most of the features you will need are in the free tier. You can take a look at their different plans here.
Rather than going over how to get it setup, feel free to check this YouTube video by Password Bits. It is a very comprehensive video on how to get started with Bitwarden.
Here are a few other password managers that, I think, are pretty great:
- 1Password (14 day free trial)
- Lastpass (Free tier is available for personal use)
- Dashlane (Free tier is available for personal use)
- Keepass / KeepassXC (Free and open source. They are offline based, but you can sync your password database with Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive etc.)
There are many others out there, but be sure to do your due diligence before selecting one.
That’s it for this week’s issue. Thanks for reading, and see you next time for another issue of the Dutchie Pot Newsletter.