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Confused about password managers? They're simpler than you might think.

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If you haven’t gotten around to using a password manager yet—one of the top safety practices recommended by security experts—you’re not alone. Even Lorrie Cranor, the just-departed chief technologist at the Federal Trade Commission, who helped protect consumers from online crimes, only started using one in late 2016. “I’ve been advocating password managers for years but I’d never actually tried one,” Cranor says.

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These services can help defend against criminals by generating and storing a different password—one that's long and complicated—for each of your online accounts. But deciding which password manager to trust with the keys to your online life may seem daunting.

Step 1: Symbols to be used in the password Here you specify which types of characters will be used in the password. It is recommended to use all available characters to generate a complicated, strong password. On the other hand, passwords with special symbols, for instance, are harder to remember, so you might wish to exclude those characters if you need to keep the password in your head. Strong Password Generator to create secure passwords that are impossible to crack on your device without sending them across the Internet, and learn over 30 tricks to keep your passwords. The password manager remembers each password for you, minimizing your risk next time there's a massive data breach. The only password you'll need to remember is the single 'master' password to the. Password Generator generates passwords of any length and character content. Password Generator will create any number of alphabetic, numeric, alphanumeric, lower and mixed case passwords of a user-defined length. Passwords can be saved in a text file. It generates passwords fine, you choose length, letters, numbers, caps, etc.

The nuts and bolts are confusing, too. Consumers may wonder how to set up the service, where their passwords will be stored, how to share passwords with a spouse, how password managers work with smartphone apps, and more. (I had those questions myself.) Here's a detailed explanation of what you need to know.

What Are Password Managers, Exactly?

The vast majority of us either use weak passwords or reuse passwords on multiple accounts. This makes us more susceptible to crimes such as identity theft. A password manager will generate, retrieve, and keep track of super-long, crazy-random passwords across countless accounts for you, while also protecting all your vital online info—not only passwords but PINs, credit-card numbers and their three-digit CVV codes, answers to security questions, and more—with encryption so strong that it might take a hacker between decades and forever to crack.

And to get all that security, you’ll only need to remember a single password, the one you use to unlock your so-called vault. Your login data will be locked down and, at the same time, remain right at your fingertips.

You'll still want to take other security measures, such as setting lock screens on all your devices, using two-factor authentication on valued accounts, and only using computers that you trust.

“Password managers are not a magic pill,” Lujo Bauer, a security researcher and associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University, says, “but for most users they'll offer a much better combination of security and convenience than they have without them. Everyone should be using one.”

Convinced, but don’t know which one to choose? Security experts say you shouldn't overthink it. “As long as it’s a name brand”—like 1Password, Dashlane, KeePass or LastPass, the four most popular options— “what password manager you use largely comes down to your personal preferences,” says Dan Guido, CEO of digital security firm Trail of Bits. “At the end of the day, the most important thing is that you find it easy to use so you’ll stick to it.”

If you try one password manager and don’t like it, it’s not a huge deal. Each of the big four password managers allows you to export all your data, so if you’re not feeling it, you can delete your account and go elsewhere.

What Will One Cost?

You have to pay for some password managers, but not all. Dashlane charges $40 per year to sync one account across all your devices—your home computer, laptop, mobile phone, and tablet. (You can use Dashlane for free, but you won’t be able to sync changes after the first month.) 1Password will run you $2.99 a month across all your devices after a 30-day trial period.

Like other password managers, both of these offer strong security: AES-256 encryption, which is used by the federal government to protect classified information. But what you're really paying Dashlane and 1Password for is easy-to-use software with nifty features such as alerts when one of your sites or services has been breached, priority customer service, the ability to change your old passwords automatically on certain sites, seamless syncing, and a smart, engaging interface.

Other services are free. The cloud-based password manager LastPass recently waived its $1 monthly fee; it offers many of the same features as Dashlane and 1Password and will sync your vault across all of your devices. (You’ll still have to pony up $12 a year for features such as priority tech support, one gigabyte of encrypted file storage, and up to five users on an account, which allows for secure password sharing.)

Then there is KeePass (and its Mac-based variant, KeePassX), open-source software that is popular among tech enthusiasts. This option is completely free. It looks like something out of 1995, but that doesn’t mean it skimps on security. It protects your password vault with the same strong encryption used by fee-based password managers.

But there's a caveat. KeePass is a DIY password manager—only choose it if you’re willing to fiddle. You can find detailed instructions online to walk you through the basic setup, as well as more advanced features that require a mix of tech know-how and patience. But you can't call customer support if you run into problems.

How Do I Set It All Up?

Except for KeePass, getting started with any password manager is roughly the same—and it’s simple. With Dashlane and 1Password, you’ll first download and install software and an extension for your browser. LastPass requires only a browser extension. You can also download an app for your mobile phone or tablet. It will all take just a few minutes.

To set up an account, you’ll use your email address and will need to come up with a master password—a long, random, complicated one.

Next, you’ll have to let the password manager know about your various accounts. You’ll be able to either import passwords you’ve stored in your browsers or have the manager store your username and password the next time you log in to a site, or enter the information manually.

Can a Password Manager Change My Old Passwords for Me?

Changing the old, weak passwords on your many online accounts to burly new, computer-generated ones can be a chore. Both Dashlane and LastPass have a feature that will automatically do this for selected lists of sites, but they are haphazard collections.

To change the majority of your passwords, you’ll have to do it yourself: Log on to the site, go to your account information, and let your password manager generate a new long, unique password. While you're at it, it's wise to change the answers to your security questions to nonsense strings of characters (which you can store in your password vault, too).

Replacing all your weak or reused passwords will take time, especially if you’re dealing with dozens of accounts. But you don’t have to do it all at once. Security experts recommend addressing your most high-value accounts first and then getting around to the other ones when you can. “Even if you’ve changed your password to only a few sites—like your email, your bank, cloud storage—you’ve significantly increased your security,” Bauer says.

As you add accounts to your vault, you’ll see that password managers also store the URLs for sign-ins, a very useful security feature: Many phishing attacks try to trick users into submitting account information by directing them to fraudulent websites with slightly different web addresses. Instead of clicking on links in a suspicious email, use the link stored in your password manager to sign in, or type the URL yourself.

Another nifty and potentially time-saving feature: A password manager’s browser extension can automatically fill in your user info. It can even automatically log you in to your account, though security experts warn that users should tread carefully here. It’s usually safer to disable auto-logins through the manager’s settings.

“Web browsers are huge pieces of software with complex functionality,” Bauer says. “With automatic logging-in, you’re effectively forced to trust web browsers not to trick the password manager into divulging your password. It is much safer to have a prompt so that you have to actively agree before your password manager sends a password to a website.”

Where Will My Passwords Be Stored?

This is a big dividing line between approaches with password managers. It’s a matter of local vs. cloud-based storage—you can either keep all your passwords on a laptop or a storage drive at home, or remotely on a company’s servers.

By default, LastPass, 1Password, and Dashlane store your password vault on their servers, allowing you to easily sync your data across devices. As a second benefit, if your computer crashes you won’t lose your vault.

But some people just really hate the idea of storing all their passwords on one site in the cloud—no matter what the company promises about its security measures, there's probably a bulls-eye painted on its encrypted back. If that sounds like you, it's possible to store your passwords locally.

Dashlane lets you do this by disabling the “Sync” feature in Preferences. This will delete your vault and its contents from the company’s servers. Of course, any further changes you make to your vault on your computer won’t show up on your other devices.

Another option: You can purchase a software license from 1Password for a one-time fee of $64.99, which will give you complete control over where you store your vault. To transfer your data to a mobile device, you can upload your encrypted vault manually to a cloud-based storage service of your own choosing, such as Dropbox or iCloud. Then, for peace of mind, you can permanently delete your password vault from the cloud once you’ve moved the data to your phone or tablet.

KeePass is the pure local play. It parks your encrypted vault on your own computer, and you’re free to keep it wherever you choose. There are methods for transferring your KeePass password file so you’ll be able use it on your mobile phone. For instance, the iOS app MiniKeePass can send the vault to your iPhone via iTunes.

How Do I Sign In to Apps?

Password managers work easily in a web browser on your laptop. But you probably want to log in to apps, too, from Facebook to banking sites. How you do this varies with the kind of phone you use.

Android phones let you use Dashlane or LastPass to log in to your apps automatically, after making a few simple tweaks to your settings; 1Password can fill in your usernames and passwords with a tap of a key on a dedicated keyboard.

Apps on iPhones are a different story. Although a few hundred are supported for autofill with 1Password, Dashlane, and LastPass, chances are that many of the apps you use are not supported.

But this doesn’t mean you’re locked out of those apps. At worst, you’ll have to toggle between your password manager’s app and, say, your banking app, copying and pasting your username and password. It sounds onerous, but after only a few taps you’re logged in, and you’ll never have to type in a long, complicated password again.

Can My Spouse and I Share Passwords?

While it’s good security practice always to keep your passwords to yourself, there are times when you’ll need to share one with a family member or coworker. Some password managers are better than others at doing this securely.

KeePass, for example, isn’t designed for discrete password sharing with a non-KeePass user. You can store a database of shared passwords in the cloud, but this means you might have to set someone up with KeePass.

1Password has a Families subscription option for up to five members at $4.99 per month (if you start with an individual plan you can migrate it to a Families plan later). You invite family members via email and can provide them with customized levels of access—like banking sites for the grown-ups only, gaming services for the kids, and streaming services for everyone. Family members will have to download 1Password onto their devices and establish their own master passwords, and your family’s vault will be stored on the company’s servers, with any changes synced immediately across everyone’s devices.

Both LastPass and Dashlane let you share as many individual passwords as you want with nonusers (although they’ll have to sign up for a free account to retrieve the login info) and your sensitive data will be encrypted throughout its journey. However, the nonpremium, free versions place limits on users—if you’re not paying for premium Dashlane features, for example, you can only share five items with someone.

What If I Forget My Master Password?

Only LastPass will offer you a password hint (or a way to reset the master password, if you’re on a device you’ve used previously).

But for the other managers, forgetting your master password means you’re locked out of your vault forever. Which is bad news, but not the end of your online world—lock yourself out of your vault and you’ll just have to reset all of your passwords, account by account, site by site.

To be safe, write your master password down and store it away in a secure place.

C'mon, Can’t You Just Tell Me Which Password Manager to Use?

It really does come down to personal preference. While interviewing a half-dozen security experts, I found that one swore by 1Password, two were devoted KeePass users, one told me to “just use LastPass,” and one used Dashlane. There was no consensus.

So I decided to try out all four of them myself. Setting up 1Password, Dashlane, and LastPass and their browser extensions really was easy and quick. (I put off dealing with KeePassX because of all I’d read about it being for tech experts only.) But while the ease-of-use features like auto-fill and generating passwords were helpful, at times it seemed too frictionless, as if an invisible hand were reaching down into web pages, filling in boxes and logging into my accounts on its own. It was unsettling.

Then there was the price. Sure, these services only cost a few dollars a month, and that's less costly than getting clobbered by an identity theft. But over a few years it would add up to $400 or more. And who wants to spend money on passwords?

Finally, I sat down to try to figure out Keepass. Five minutes in and I was ready to give up. Was I downloading the right version? Could this actually be malware? But after awhile I found a very helpful guide through Security in a Box, a project founded by two human-rights groups. It offered step-by-step instructions that made setting up Keepass about as challenging as putting together an Ikea bookcase.

To integrate Keepass with a web browser I would have needed a separate plug-in, but I already had all the features that I really wanted—strong encryption, a password generator, and one place to store account info, PINs, and security questions. Good enough for me. What’s more, I didn't have to trust someone else’s servers. While I have no doubt that commercial password managers are taking the most stringent security measures, I just feel much more comfortable keeping access to my vault completely in my own hands.

And there were other benefits. Once I got KeePass up and running, I not only had a great password manager, I also felt a hard-earned sense of tech-insider satisfaction. It didn’t cost me a dime.

How to Create Strong Passwords

Think your passwords are tough to hack? Think again. On the 'Consumer 101' TV show, host Jack Rico and Consumer Reports expert Bobby Richter show how to protect your most private information online.

Stop trying to come up with clever, cryptic passwords that you struggle to keep in your head. With a secure and easy-to-use password manager, you can manage your login credentials across all your devices, keeping your passwords safe and automatically filling in forms and syncing your data across Windows, MacOS, Android phones and iPhones and iPads.

Simply, a password manager is an encrypted digital vault that stores the login information you use to access websites, apps and other services. Besides keeping your credentials, identity and sensitive data safe, a password manager can generate unique, strong passwords to ensure you aren't reusing them across your services. Withalltherecentnewsofsecuritybreaches and identity theft, using unique passwords can go a long way to ensuring that if one site gets hacked, your stolen password can't be used on other sites.

Read more:The guide to password security (and why you should care)

And with a manager, you don't have to remember the various pieces of login information, such as credit-card information or shipping addresses. With just one master password -- or in some cases a PIN or even your fingerprint -- you can autofill a form or password field. Some also feature online storage and an encrypted vault for storing documents.

All our best password manager picks come in free versions, which usually lets you securely store passwords for one device (although our pick for best free manager can be used across multiple devices). Our picks also feature subscription options that let you sync your log-in information across all your devices, share credentials with trusted family and friends and get access to secure online storage. And if transparency is important to you, several of our picks are open-source projects. We also look at what a password manager is and the basics of how to use one.

Note that these services are independently chosen by our editors. CNET may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site. Dark season 1 episode 10.

• Offers free version
  
• Base price beyond free: $36 per year
• Works with: Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iPhone and iPad. Browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Edge and Opera.

Some of our other picks have a free option, but most lock you to just one device if you don't pay up. The free version of LastPass stands out by giving you the ability to store passwords, user login info and credentials and sync all of it wherever you want -- across desktop, mobile and browsers.

You can also share a login item with another person. For $36 a year, you can purchase the Premium version to share passwords, logins, memberships and other items with trusted emergency contacts, multifactor authentication through YubiKey and a fingerprint scanner and 1GB of encrypted storage.

And with a $48 annual subscription, you can sign up for the Families plan that gives you six individual accounts, shared folders and a dashboard interface for managing the accounts and keeping an eye on your account's security.

No, LastPass isn't flawless: A vulnerability privately reported in September 2019 was a scary flaw that could potentially compromise passwords. But the company patched it before it was known to be exploited in the wild.

The search algorithm is very quick and it searches a word from millions of words quickly.I was also amazed at the performance of Adobe Reader. Adobe reader 8.1 free download for windows 7 32 bit. Now you can search for multiple PDF documents or locate some content from a complete folder.

Read More: This is the best free password manager

• Offers trial version
  
• Base price: $35.88 per year
  
• Works with: Windows, MacOS, Linux, Chrome OS, Android, iPhone and iPad. Browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge and Opera.

If you're looking for a trusted password manager app to keep your login information private and secure, 1Password is up to the task, letting you access your accounts and services with one master password. It's available for Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, Linux and Chrome OS.

The nicely designed manager lacks a free version, but you can try for free for 30 days before signing up. An individual subscription runs $36 a year, and comes with 1GB of document storage and optional two-factor authentication for additional security. A travel mode lets you remove your 1Password sensitive data from your device when you travel and then restore it with one click when you return.

On Macs, you can use Touch ID to unlock 1Password, and on iOS devices, you can use Face ID, too. For $60 a year, you can cover a family of five, sharing passwords, credit cards and anything else among the group. Each person gets their own vault, and it's easy to control who you share information with and what they can do with it.

You can also create separate guest accounts to share Wi-Fi connection passwords, for example, or home alarm codes with guests.

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Other free and paid options worth considering

Both LastPass and 1Password are solid, affordable password keepers, and in a straw poll of CNET staffers, they were about neck-and-neck in use -- though the latter may include some taking advantage of the 1Password for Journalism initiative that offers free service to us hacks. But if you find neither of our two recommended password managers works quite how you want, a handful of other apps are worth considering. These all have free versions available.

Bitwarden

• Offers free version
  
• Base price beyond free: $10 per year
• Works with: Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iPhone and iPad. Browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Opera, Vivaldi, Brave and Tor Browser.
  

Bitwarden is a lean, open-source encryption software password manager that can store and autofill your passwords across your devices and popular browsers -- including Brave and Tor -- for free. It lacks some of the bells and whistles of our picks, but for $10 a year, you can add 1GB of encrypted file storage.

Dashlane

• Offers limited free version (50 passwords on one device)
• Base price beyond free: $59.88 per year
  
• Works with: Windows, MacOS, Android, iPhone and iPad. Browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Edge and Opera.
  

Dashlane provides a simple and secure way to manage your passwords and keep other login information stored. Just for managing passwords, we like it as much as our picks, but the free Dashlane app limits you to one device and 50 passwords, and the Premium subscription is $60 a year, more than similar plans from 1Password and LastPass.

Keeper

• Offers limited free version (unlimited passwords on one device)
• Base price beyond free: $25.49 per year (usually $29.99)
• Works with: Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iPhone and iPad. Browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Edge and Opera.

Keeper is another password service than helps you manage login info on Windows, MacOS, Android and iOS devices. A free version gives you unlimited passwords on one device. The step-up version costs $25 to $30 a year and lets you sync passwords across all your devices. For $60 a year, you can get 10GB of secure file storage.

KeePassXC

• It's free
  
• Works with: Windows, MacOS, Linux, Chrome OS, Android, iPhone and iPad, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Palm OS. Access via the web plus popular browser extensions. (Except for the official Windows version, KeePass for other platforms are unofficial ports.)
  

KeePass, another open-source software, started on Windows and has been ported over using the same code base to other platforms, including MacOS, Android and iOS. On the plus side, it's totally free and endorsed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. On the other side, it's really for advanced users only: Its user interface takes a bit of fiddling to get all the independently built versions of KeePass to work together.

Password manager basics

Still need more info on what password managers are, and why they're better than the alternatives? Read on.

How does a password manager work?

To get started, a password manager will record the username and password you use when you first sign in to a website or service. Then the next time you use visit the site, it will autofill forms with your stored user login information. For those websites and services that don't handle automatic filling, a manager lets you copy the password to paste into the password field.

If you're stuck picking a good password, the manager can generate a strong password for you and watch that you aren't reusing any across services. And if you use more than one device, you want a manager that is available across all your devices and browsers, so you can access your passwords and login information -- including credit-card and shipping information -- from anywhere through the manager app or its browser extension. Some provide secure storage so you can store other items too, such as documents, say an electronic copy of your passport or will.

Take note: Many password managers keep the master password you use to unlock the manager locally and not on a remote server. Or if it's on a server, it's encrypted and not readable by the company.

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This ensures your account stays secure in case of a data breach. It also means that if you forget your master password, there may not be a way to recover your account through the company. Because of that, a few password managers offer DIY kits to help you recover your account on your own. Worse case scenario, you start over with a new account and manually reset your passwords at each specific destination site and account and start again.

Read more: This is how we might finally replace passwords

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What makes for a secure password?

A good password should be a long string of capital and lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation and other nonalphanumeric characters -- something that's difficult for others to guess, but a snap for a password manager to keep track of. And despite what you may have heard, once you select a good password, you don't really need to change it periodically.

Read more: The worst passwords of 2018 are just as dumb as you'd expect

Can I use a web browser to manage my passwords and login information?

You can certainly use Chrome, Safari or Firefox to manage your passwords, addresses and other login data. You can even set up a master password to unlock your credentials within a browser. And while using an online browser's password tool is certainly better than not using a password keeper at all, you can't access your passwords and other login info outside of the browser, the browser isn't much help in generating strong passwords and you can't share login info with others you trust.

What about iCloud Keychain?

Through iCloud Keychain, you can access your Safari website usernames and passwords, credit card information and Wi-Fi network information from your Mac and iOS devices. It's great if you live in Apple's world. But if you venture outside and have a Windows or Android device or use the Chrome or Firefox browser, iCloud Keychain comes up short.

Read more:Google looks to leave passwords behind for a billion Android devices

• David Gewirtz contributed to this story.

Originally published Feb. 16, 2018.
Update, Aug. 8, 2019: This story is frequently updated to reflect new picks, pricing and changes in the market; Sept. 16, 2019: Adds information on LastPass update.

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