When was the last time you forgot your password -- for anything -- and then had to guess and hope you got it right before your third try? This happens to me all the time. I do everything online from my job in PR to managing a blog on the side, and I feel like I'm always plugged in. Like most people I know, I have one password I've been using since AIM, and a million variations on it. Add an exclamation point here, an ampersand there, a capital letter when the site requires it, or just tack on a random string of numbers at the end, and call it a day. This has been my system since the beginning, and needless to say, it's absolute chaos. That is, until I lost my phone and had to get a new one and completely start over.
Getting my new phone all set up made me realize that signing into my accounts was not going to be easy. I'm embarrassed to say this, but I kept every password variation in the Notes app on my phone, so I was locked out of basically all of my accounts. Resetting all of my passwords took me hours, and weeks later I was still finding accounts I needed to change. The most frustrating part was that after too many failed attempts on a couple accounts, they were put on a temporary hold, and I had to actually make a call to get logged back in. Needless to say, this experience was the tipping point for me and I decided that I needed a new system. My friend had told me about this software called Dashlane that manages your passwords for you, but I never got around to signing up in the past, so this was the perfect opportunity.
Dashlane is a password management software that will remember all your passwords for you. Yes, it is that simple and someone made an app for it. It's an easy and secure way to manage all your passwords across multiple devices. How it works is Dashlane has a "Zero Knowledge Architecture". This means you create one master password that is stored offline, and their engineers don't even have access to it. To ensure even more security, every time you log in from a new device, it requires two-factor authentication. The app is activated with your master password and this matches to your other passwords. To break it down, if Dashlane is hacked, it would be like breaking into a bank but having no access to the vaults inside.
Once I started using Dashlane, I was surprised by how much this little time-saver affected my day to day. When I'd log into anything on any device - smartphone, work computer, laptop - all I had to do was go to the site and I'd be logged in with the corresponding password. No need to enter it in eight different variations of the same old password changing one symbol or capital letter hoping it works. They even have a Security Dashboard that will tell you how you can improve the strength of your passwords, or you can opt to have them create a stronger one for you. This has made my work life more seamless, too, because I have multiple accounts I'm constantly logging into. My favorite perk by far is the ease of online shopping. Dashlane stores your address and credit cards, so that at check out it auto-populates your information. I never realized how annoying it was to type in all that info all the time until I didn't have to.
I'm not the type of person who would seek out a password manager, but I'm so glad I did. Every time I read about another security breach, I feel assured knowing my information is safe with Dashlane. Not only does it manage my passwords securely, but it has made my online life that much more manageable.
