Everyone Needs a Password Manager Is your bank password your dog's name? Do you use your birthday to log into your email? Do you think you're safe, because you memorized one long, strong password that you use everywhere? In all three cases, your secure accounts are in danger. Malefactors can guess simple, weak passwords to break into your accounts. And if they breach one of your secure sites, stealing your username and password along with thousands of others, they can try that strong password on all of your other accounts. You need to use a strong, unique password for every site, and remembering that much information just isn't humanly possible. The solution? Enlist a password manager to both remember your existing passwords and to generate new, strong ones. What's that you say? You can't afford to buy yet another security tool? In truth, you can't afford not to. The potential hit, financial and otherwise, that could result from using weak passwords could cost you plenty. Never fear. There are quire a few password managers that cost nothing, and some of them come close to the best paid password managers. Basic Features Your typical password manager integrates with the browser and captures the username and password when you log in to a secure site. Occasionally, you'll find one that doesn't automate password capture and replay, but these may have other virtues, such as filling in passwords for secure applications, not just webpages. The best password managers capture your credentials during account creation; when you change your password online, they offer to update the stored password for that site. Of course, password capture only works if the password manager recognizes that you're logging in to a secure site, so non-standard login pages can cause trouble. Some products cleverly solve this problem by letting you manually capture all data fields on a page. Others actively analyze popular secure sites whose login pages don't fit the norm, creating scripts to handle each site's oddball login process. See Our Top Paid Password Managers When you revisit a site for which you've saved credentials, most password managers automatically fill the saved data, offering a menu if you've saved more than one set of credentials. Another handy (and common) feature is a browser toolbar menu of available logins, so that with one click you can navigate to a site and log in. One great thing about free password managers is that you can try several and find out which one you like best. If you're thinking of making such a survey, look for products that can import from other password managers. Otherwise, you'll have to go through the password capture process over and over for each candidate. Advanced Features The point of adding a password manager to your security arsenal is to replace your weak and duplicate passwords with strong, unguessable passwords. But where do you get those strong passwords? Most password managers can generate strong passwords for you; many let you take control of things like password length, and which character sets will be used. The very best ones offer a password strength report that eases the process of identifying and fixing poor passwords. A very few can even automate the password-change process. Filling in usernames and passwords automatically isn't so different from filling other sorts of data in Web forms. Many commercial password managers take advantage of this similarity and thereby streamline the process of filling forms with personal data. Not many free password managers offer this feature. When you put all of your passwords into one repository, you had better be really, really careful to protect that repository. Yes, your master password should be as strong as possible, but you really need two-factor authentication to foil any possible hack attack. Two-factor authentication could be biometric, requiring a fingerprint, facial recognition, or even voice recognition. Some password managers rely on Google Authenticator or apps that emulate Google Authenticator; others can be configured to require an authentication code texted to your smartphone. Allowing access only from registered, trusted devices is yet another form of two-factor authentication. Speaking of smartphones, many of us are just as likely to log into a secure site from a mobile device as from a desktop computer. If that describes you, look for a password manager that can sync your credentials between your desktop and the mobile devices that you use. Note, though, that in some cases you'll have to pay to extend protection to mobile devices. In addition to using your passwords on multiple devices, you may find you want to share certain logins with other users. Not all free password managers support secure sharing; many of those that do allow you to share the login without making the password visible. A very few let you define an inheritor for your passwords, someone who will receive them in the event of your demise. Free Editions of Paid Programs If you're willing to give up a little something, you can use many commercial password managers for free. If you see a paid password manager with features you like, check out its conditions. You may be able to get it without paying. For example, some companies let you use all the features of their product for free as long as you give up syncing across multiple devices. Another common tactic is to let you use the product for free, but limit the number of passwords you can store. The limit for free usage tends to range between about five and 15 passwords. If you can stick to that, you needn't pay. If not, the company will happily accept your payment for upgrading to the paid edition. Editors' Choice Our Editors' Choice products in the free password manager area are LastPass 4.0 and LogMeOnce Password Management Suite Premium. Both offer a breadth of features just not found in the free competition. If you're concerned about security, you should also read our best antivirus and best VPN roundups. LastPass Review MSRP: $0.00 at Bottom Line: LastPass offers advanced password management features that few free competitors offer, and it has an updated user interface. However, some of its features are a bit dated. Read Review 1U Password Manager Review MSRP: $0.00 at Bottom Line: Powerful biometric authentication is the star feature in 1U Password Manager. The password manager itself is pretty basic, however, and it could use some user-interface work. Read Review Enpass Password Manager 5 Review MSRP: $0.00 at Bottom Line: Enpass Password Manager 5 is a big improvement over the edition we tested previously, but it still won't challenge the best free password managers. Note, too, that you must pay if you want t... Read Review KeePass 2.34 Review MSRP: $0.00 at Bottom Line: KeePass 2.34 is the most configurable password manager around, but many of the convenient features we've come to expect are available only through third-party plug-ins. Read Review oneID Review MSRP: $0.00 at Bottom Line: With no master password required, managing your passwords with oneID is extremely simple. However, its device-based authentication can be risky unless you take proper precautions. Read Review Symantec Norton Identity Safe Review MSRP: $0.00 at Bottom Line: Symantec Norton Identity Safe has the basics covered. It's free and does everything a password manager should do. However, some competitors offer much more flexibility and power for the same... Read Review

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