How familiar is this scenario when you are trying to remember passwords?
You are at the login page of one of your many important accounts and are trying to remember your username and password, but despite being absolutely sure that you are entering the correct log-in details, the site that you are trying to log into returns the following message, ‘the information you provided does not match our records’, or something similar, and you are now locked out of your account.
You then have to go through the laborious process of resetting your password, usually by entering your e-mail address and answering some preset security questions that you are unable to remember the answer’s to and can’t even remember setting in the first place.
After spending much time resetting your password, or even contacting the site’s admin by email or telephone, you now have your password reset and have logged in, done what you had to do, and have logged out till next time, when you have to do all of this again, because by the time you would want to visit this same site, you have forgotten your login details yet again.
Remembering your passwords.
Some people will try to remember their passwords in their heads, or will write them down on pieces of note paper, write them down in a special book, make notes in a Word or Excel document and file them away in a folder on their PC, and even rely on their browsing history to recall their passwords.
Remembering your passwords in your head is very secure, as only you will be able to view them, but is not a reliable method as you will have, over time, built up multiple usernames, passwords and security questions and you will not be able to remember what password belongs to what site, never mind remember the answers to the security questions.
Writing them down on pieces of notepaper, or even in a special book is ok, but you need to write them down exactly, (passwords are case-sensitive, contain special characters, and numbers too). This method is not a hundred per cent secure as you could lose the book, or leave it lying about for others to see and you would have to carry it around with you should you want to log in on the go.
Keeping them on a file on your PC is quite a good method, as you can enter your log in details on the site login page by copying and pasting, this will always enter the exact details, although some websites will not let you paste in by right-clicking, you would have to use ‘Ctrl V’ on your keyboard, some sites might not let you even do that, and you would then have to type it in. You do run the risk of losing your password file though, should your PC crash and you have not made a backup. Also, you are unable to carry them about for use on the go.
Relying on your browsing history is not a very reliable or secure method either, because if you clear your cookies, your browsing history is wiped and so are your logins details!
Keeping your passwords safe and secure.
An alternative to all of the above methods is to use a password manager to safely store and recall all of your login details in just a couple of clicks, this is in the form of a software program that is installed on your PC, you will only need to remember one password to get into your password management software. A password management program.
I have accumulated hundred’s of passwords over the years, and I use Roboform to remember passwords. All of them are stored safely and securely in my Roboform everywhere account. Not only does Roboform store passwords securely it also will generate secure passwords to keep your online accounts safe from hackers.
What I mean by that is Roboform has a built-in password generator that will generate strong and secure passwords to different criteria and will look like this example ‘2npcT5LcxK$x’. If you notice this password has twelve characters, consists of upper and lower case letter’s, numbers, special characters and is very strong, so it would be safe to say that a password like this is unhackable.
Roboform is software that is installed on your PC and is added as an extension to your browser, i:e, Edge, Firefox, Chrome etc, and will work with most popular browsers and operating platforms, including MAC, IOS, Android, Linux and Chrome OS.
If you have been struggling to remember your passwords in the past and would like to try Roboform, you can find out more and download Roboform by clicking on the following link;
If you are using a different password manager or are having difficulty in remembering your password and logins, I would like to know about your experiences so please tell me all about them by leaving a comment in the box below.