Setup a password manager
A few years ago I had a strange issue with my Spotify account. I'd be listening to objectively good music, then halfway through a track, it would suddenly change to objectively bad music.
Someone had used my email and password to login and play electronic pings and boops — interrupting my listening experience and making me unable to share my Spotify Wrapped for fear of my music taste being judged as too eclectic.
So how did this happen?
I was using the same combination of email and password on a different app. That app got hacked and the information was leaked — allowing people to login to any account with the same credentials.
This is a problem is widespread1 — and the stakes are much higher than being musically annoyed.
Once criminals have your credentials there are lots of ways they can squeeze money out of you or the people around you — many are inconvenient, some are extremely horrible.
To stop this from happening you must never reuse passwords. But remembering a different password for every single service we use is a tall order. Which is why you should setup a password manager.
What is a password manager?
A password manager is a piece of software that:
- Remembers all your passwords across all your devices.
- Generates random passwords for all your accounts.
- Automatically pastes your passwords into the correct inputs on websites and in apps.
Once set up, using a password manager means you'll have different passwords for each one of your accounts — and you'll never have to suffer the consequences of data breaches.
Which password manager is best
The best password manager is:
- Compatible with all your devices
- Easy to use
- Unlikely to go out of business or be hacked
Apple
If you're happily locked into the Apple ecosystem, you should use their built in password manager. It's called Passwords, it's the one I use, it's good, it's free, and it works across apple devices.
Google Chrome and Android
Google also have a password manager called Google Password Manager, it's built into Chrome and Android devices and syncs across these devices. If your web browser of choice is Chrome and your other devices use Android, this is a logical and free choice for you.
Everything else
If you use a combination of devices from different vendors then the built in password managers won't be able to sync across devices. This means you'll need third-party software to do that for you.
A safe bet, as they appear on the top of almost every list of best password managers, is 1password.
1password is very popular and relied on by a lot of people and organizations. It's also got a good history of not being hacked. According to Footnotes
haveibeenpwned.com, the best resource for information on this sort of thing, 14,371,221,947 accounts have had their data breached — almost twice the number of people on Earth.