It’s often difficult to cook up a high-quality password for an account that you don’t want compromised – that’s why password generators exist.
Password generators create passwords for your accounts online, often producing a string of letters, numbers and symbols in random orders. The idea is that because they’re so random without much rhyme or reason between each character that it should be more difficult for your account to be penetrated.
We’ll be going over password generators below.
What password generator should I use?
You’re spoilt for choice when it comes to password generators, with a variety of paid and unpaid services out there.
Firstly, Google Chrome has an inbuilt password generator. Provided that you’re signed in to Chrome with a Google account, all you need to do is travel to a website where you’re signing up for an account, click the password text box and click “Suggest Strong Password”. Chrome will generate a password for you quickly.
Chrome’s password generator is free, but it’s also very basic to use. Paid password generators typically give you more features, with the downside being that they’re – you know – paid. A good example of this is LastPass, which offers password length options and a password manager.
Alternatively, NordPass, KeePass and Strong Password Generator are also worth checking out, considering they’re free and also offer greater features than the inbuilt Chrome generator.
How do I test a password?
If you don’t want to use a password generator all the time, you should at least be testing the strength of your password. Most account creation sections of websites will give you a password strength indicator, but a second opinion never hurts – personally, I use security.org’s “How Secure Is My Password?” tool. It gives you a good idea of how quickly a password could be cracked by a program or a hacker and some useful tips on making a secure password.
How do I use a password generator?
Typically a password generator can be used in one of a few ways:
- It could be hosted online through a website, which you copy and paste the generated password from.
- It could work as a browser extension or could simply be inbuilt into your browser
- It could be an offline application that you open outside of your browser
More specific instructions will typically be provided by your chosen password generator.
How do I not lose my passwords?
This is more of a question for somebody after a password manager – but you should probably get a password manager. While your Google account comes with an inbuilt password manager that remembers passwords across multiple devices, you might want to consider an alternative manager. LogMeOnce, 1Password and Bitwarden are all worth considering.
On top of these managers, a lot of people go for the physical solution – putting your password in an actual book that you write in. Just make sure you don’t lose this password book.
How can I be extra secure?
Two-factor authentication is typically seen as one of the best ways to keep your account truly secure, prompting your phone or your email address before letting you access the service. While it can seem like a lot of extra work it’s definitely worth doing.
Alternatively, while the convenience can seem attractive, don’t recycle the same password over and over again. The last thing you want is all of your services being hacked because you’ve used the same password.