Password Managers are a very easy way to keep track of the many passwords you may have for all your online accounts. If you’re a small business owner, then you probably have a Facebook account, a Twitter account,  a blog account and a website hosting account.

While some of us can remember the password to most of our accounts thanks to regular use and a helmet, sometimes other accounts are accessed on a periodic basis. Information that is not used and reused regularly may fade away (apparently a normal brain functions in this manner). A good password manager can help thus freeing up valuable brain space for other important details (Fine. Apparently a normal brain doesn’t quite work this way).

Free Password Managers

1. FireFox–Built-In Password Manager

If you read our blog entry on the three best browsers (to date), then you are probably using FireFox as your default browser while relegating IE to the background. If you haven’t read that blog entry, then you should. Really. Go ahead. We will wait here for you to finish.

Did you know that Firefox has a built-in password manager? We’re sure you did and probably use it too, unless you are still using IE that also has a password manager. We don’t trust IE’s security measures so the less said the better.

If you are using the password manager in Firefox just remember to set a master password. Otherwise it would be very easy for anyone who has access to your computer to copy all the passwords you have saved.  For easy tips on creating a strong password click here to read the previous post.

2. KeePass

Unfortunate choice of names but a good Password Manager nevertheless. It has strong security features and also free. We also like that it is open source.

Their amusing write-up of the encryption algorithms warranted a copy/paste, so here you go.

• Even if you would use all computers in the world to attack one database, decrypting it would take longer than the age of the universe.
• Even quantum computers won’t help that much. The algorithms are symmetric so its complexity would be reduced a bit, anyway, the sun will go nova before you have decrypted the database. http://keepass.info/features.html

Newbies (beginners) who don’t want to download anything extra will need to be on Windows Vista and higher (to use version 2x).

3. LastPass

There are two versions, free and premium.

Features for the free version allow users to:

• Securely synchronize data across all devices.
• Automatically Fill Forms–Set up multiple ‘profiles’ and automatically fill your personal information into web forms accurately and safely.
• Store secure notes
• Easily Import existing passwords from Internet Explorer, Firefox, and other Password Managers (We love this option)   https://lastpass.com/features_free.php

Do you use a Password Manager that is indispensable to you? Share it with us in the comment box below.