[dyukqu]

I've never used a password manager, I memorize them - dozens of them. And almost all of them are uniqe and "strong" passwords. Now I have a feeling that this situation is a real burden for my mind/brain and I consider using one; just trying to convince* myself. Up until this time, I was thinking that "it's a good mental exercise!", not any more. Maybe the reason is now I have too many things to ponder upon.

I'd like to hear (well, read) if any of you have ever been in the same situation and how was the transition like? :-)

*it's a little complicated...for me

[linsomniac]

Memorizing your passwords seems impossible to me. The passwords I've put in my new password vault over the last year probably number in the mid 3 digits, and I don't really think I have THAT big an online footprint. So either: You share passwords among sites (which I never do) or you have a WAY better memory than I do. Or, I guess, you just use the password reset a lot?

Here are some things that make it really hard to remember all the passwords I need to:

- One bank requires me to change my password every month that I login. Don't even get me started.

- Many sites require 3-5 "security questions", which I consider to be effectively passwords and generate/manage them as such.

- Different sites have different allowed formulas of what they require for passwords

Memorizing passwords seems like a recipe for reuse of the same passwords on multiple sites, which is terrible.

[neogodless]

I can't say I was quite as good about unique and strong passwords, but up until maybe a year ago, I just memorized all of my passwords. I had a few that I re-used a bit, especially for non-critical web sites.

Finally, I started out with LastPass. (Now I use BitWarden but the experience should be very similar.) What I knew I needed was something to work with my desktop browser, and something to work on my phone with any apps with logins, and with my mobile browser. A year ago, LastPass worked great with desktop and mobile Chrome, and Android. (BitWarden is a little trickier to integrate with mobile Firefox, as I outlined elsewhere in this thread, but it's constantly improving.)

So, you set up your new account, you choose a really amazing, unique, strong password like the world has never seen, and that's the only one you need to know. But there is that transition.

Install the password manager app and add-on(s) as needed on each place. Each will want to know your login and super amazing password, so you'll get to exercise your memory.

You probably want to go to each site and app that you infrequently use, log on in, add it to your password manager - or just do so directly, but you want to make sure the URLs and app references are correct - and move on to your everyday activities. (You can revisit later if you want to update it to something randomly generated.) Then go about your daily business, and if you get to apps and web sites you haven't added to your manager, no big deal - just let the manager remember it.

It's all really simple. Now, if you really want to do your due diligence, go back and update the password, especially for mission critical accounts, so that only your password manager knows the password, and it's as strong as possible.