What is a password?

A password is a secret set of characters including letters, numbers, or symbols used to confirm the identity of a user to gain access to a computer system.

What is a password manager?

A password manager is software used to securely store all of your passwords without having to remember them all yourself except for the master password. It can help you remember your passwords used on a daily basis, such as your email and social network accounts.

With a password manager, you can use extremely long and complicated passwords to secure your online accounts from getting compromised.

Should I use a password manager?

You're strongly encouraged to use a password manager to securely store your passwords.

How password managers work

The master password is the most important part as it's the key to everything inside the password vault. You have to treat it very importantly because you just can't lose it or forget it. Otherwise, you'll likely lock yourself out of the password vault, and it's very difficult to reset the forgotten master password.

A password manager will immensely help you keep your passwords safe in one place. The master password will act as the key to encrypt and decrypt a binary file storing your passwords inside. The binary file is encrypted many hundred thousand times to ensure that it's extremely secure. Without the master password, no one other than you can read what's inside the binary file not even the creator of the password manager.

The binary file will be kept securely on the server and synced to your devices every time there is an update, such as your computer and mobile phones. If the server ever gets compromised, the hacker will get only the encrypted binary files which are nearly impossible to crack. For the worst case scenario, you can rest assured that you still have time to update all the passwords before they can access your password vault.

In conclusion, it's practically extremely safe to use a password manager to keep your passwords online instead of remembering them all yourself. You can use uniquely generated log passwords containing numbers, letters, and symbols easily, and a password manager will help you keep them safe.

When a website is compromised and one of your passwords leaks to the public, you'll have just to set a new password for such a website instead of updating all the websites that use the same leaked password.