Password managers

[u/Jesus_ecs]

I'd like to read your recommendations for password managers, BUT for someone who only understands the basics of technology in this case, my mom.

I use Bitwarden, and I'm not sure if she'd be able to figure it out.

[u/Parka2236]

This assumes that brute force is the only threat to passwords. In the event of a heck of anything every service you use would be compromised by this approach 

[u/T1gerHeart → u/Parka2236]

Can you name any other ways to crack a password of this length (24-32+ characters!!!) in recent / actual times? However, I've only described one possible way to bypass password managers. There are plenty of others that are more resistant to hacking.

[u/Parka2236 → u/T1gerHeart]

I wasn't clear - the concern is a hack of the company (or whatever) and leak of passwords and login details. If they are using best practice this will be less of an issue, but the fact that there are frequent password dumps shows that there is a very real risk that some place you use your super secure password will get hacked and then they have your password for everything

[u/T1gerHeart → u/Parka2236]

In this case, it's preferable to use a password consisting of a completely random set of several groups of characters (like a random "phrase" of 3-5 words, but without meaning). Just Google how long it would take to crack such a password. And in most of the cases you're talking about, the data leaks occurred not due to direct password hacks, but for other reasons.

[u/mickdrop → u/T1gerHeart]

You don't seem to get it. You can use a password as complicated as you want, but if one website disclose it, then it will be tried in all your other accounts for other services. For instance, if you create an account to merchant website with this password and it becomes public, this same password will be tried on you email account, your banking account, etc. That's why people recommend to use a different password for each service, and that's why you need a password manager.

[u/T1gerHeart → u/mickdrop]

Im not use online PMs in any case. Following basic network security rules is sufficient, and there's no need for any hacks or apps. If someone is overwhelmed by paranoia, they could come up with a dynamic password generation algorithm. It would be universal—passwords would be different, but generated using the same algorithm. Then, all you need to remember is the algorithm itself, and you don't even need to remember passwords, just logins and email addresses if you used different ones when registering. Once again, all these online password managers are hacks for the lazy.