Have you ever stopped and thought about how many online sites you visit that require a username and password?

According to a study by Microsoft an average user has about 25 accounts that require passwords, and alarmingly types an average of 8 passwords per day. That was several years ago and it is much greater then that today.

Because of this a slew of products are available to help you “contain” all your username and passwords for online sites and they all can be accessed by one “master” password.

Why LastPass?

I have used several similar products that provide this functionality but have found LastPass to be the best.  I have used LastPass for several years now and it “manages” over 300 sites in my LastPass “Vault”.

Yes this number of sites is probably not the norm, but when you include: forums, online stores, email accounts, health accounts, financial accounts, business accounts, social media, etc…the accounts, usernames and passwords add up rather quickly. With LastPass I only have to remember ONE single password to access any of the sites securely.

As a technology engineer and business owner where everything is in the “cloud”, security is one of the most important aspects.

Secure

No one at LastPass will ever have access to your sensitive information as it is 256-bit AES encrypted. The decryption occurs on your local device (PC, android, IOS etc..). And all data passing to the cloud uses SSL.

TIP: Make sure to create a strong “master” password by doing the following.

• Is at least eight characters long.
• Does not contain your user name, real name, or company name.
• Does not contain a complete word.
• Is significantly different from previous passwords.
• Contains Uppercase and Lowercase letters and Numbers

Saves Time

Stop searching through your vulnerable excel sheets, sticky notes, or passwords underneath your keyboard which all waste time and are less secure.  You can access any of your sites from anywhere.
And because you have to remember just one you can now go back and make your most risky sites (financial etc…) passwords more secure.

Free

Of course one of the best reasons is its free.  The only drawback to the free version is its limited to PC’s. If you want to use the app on your android or IOS you will need the premium version, which is only $1 a month. Well worth it.

Versatile

Regardless if you use a Mac, Windows, Linux or a Smartphone system, LastPass works and is available almost anywhere.

They have a add-ins for most browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer that will auto-fill your username and password for sites and even auto-login if you wish.  It cannot get any easier than that.

I have only reached the tip of the iceberg in regards to features of this product. Hopefully you try out this product and see for yourself how useful it is as it has been for me. You can download LastPass here.

If you have tried it I would be curious to know how many “sites” it helps you manage?