When managing an online business, one thing became prominent after a while. You have to handle so many user accounts, from WordPress to Facebook, it’s easy to mix things up. How do you remember all your passwords on a daily basis without having to reset everything all over again? In this review, we’ll show you why LastPass is the smart solution to this problem.
What Is LastPass?
Established in 2008, LastPass is a password management service which helps users to store passwords data in the cloud. The smart software is used in more than 100 countries worldwide and it is a popular management tool for big companies like Amazon as well as small business owners and online marketers.
How Does LastPass Remember All Your Passwords?
To use LastPass, you must first download the application to your computer. If you find this troublesome, you can just add an extension/plugin through your web browser. Since I prefer the convenient way of doing things, I have added the software using the Chrome extension.
Upon successful installation, you’ll be prompted to create an account with LastPass and a Master Password to get access to all your account information. This is the only time you have to physically remember a password because if you lose it, the software will not be able to retrieve all the data.
There are two ways to store a password; 1) Add a site manually to LastPass or 2) Browse the site and save the password on the fly. In this example, I am at the login page of my Facebook account. If you look closely at the username and password columns, you’ll see an asterisk symbol on the right hand side.
When clicked, a pop-up screen containing all the vital account information would show up. I simply click save and all this data will be stored automatically into my LastPass account. The same steps work for other sites too so as you go along signing in/out of any online user accounts, LastPass will prompt you about saving the passwords. Besides that, you can also store passwords from ‘offline’ accounts such as your bank, insurance and credit card information.
Inside LastPass, all the data can be organized into specific folders so that you’ll know where to retrieve them. Super convenient, right?
Now, do you know that a strong password is usually made up from a combination of letters, symbols and numbers? This is certainly not something that’s easy to create, much less remember. Fortunately, LastPass has a feature called ‘Generate Password’ that can help you come up with various ‘strong’ combination so that you don’t have to crack your head thinking about it.
As shown in the image above, you can choose the length, the type of characters and generate the password with just one click. From now on, you’ll just have to remember one main password to enter your LastPass user account and the software will automatically ‘remember’ all the other complicated passwords for you.
Pretty cool, uh?
How Much Does LastPass Cost?
The basic package is free for download. It provides unlimited browser sync, password generator and multi-factor authentication. As a single end-user, these basic features are more than sufficient to keep your online business accounts organized.
If you wish to have added security and technical support, you can always upgrade to the LastPass Premium account for $12/year. If you have a bigger team, then consider using LastPass Enterprise at the minimum cost of $24/user.
How Safe Is LastPass?
By now, you are probably thinking if this software is protected from password hackers. Well, they do have quite a sophisticated technology to make it hacking-proof and you can read more about it at their technical page OR jump over to the reader-friendly version here. LastPass also offers an extensive topic about privacy and software matters on their support site, so I would recommend that you take the time to read if you are doubtful about the software security.
So, Is LastPass Worthy of Your Time?
Okay, let me ask you these questions first;
- How strong are your online passwords?
- Have any of your accounts been hacked before as a result of using a vulnerable password?
- How often have you lost your passwords, fail to retrieve them and force to create your accounts all over again?
- How much time have you wasted trying to fix these frustrating situations?
Taking these into consideration, wouldn’t it be great to have a software that can help you store and organized all this data without losing your accounts (and your sanity)? User privacy and internet safety are very important in the online world and it all starts with creating strong passwords and the ability to keep them safe. By using a smart software like LastPass, you can be more reassured that your online activities are secure and easier to manage.
By the way, are you also interested to check out other tools that can improve the performance of your online business? Find out what type of resources this awesome training site can offer for your success.
Do you have any thoughts or questions about using LastPass? We would love to hear about it in the comment below.
Hi Cathy.
I have one of the most prehistoric password management tools ever invented.
It’s called a notebook (paper and pen)! Which I also use as a mouse pad! So I have all my passwords at my fingertips.
Yes I know it doesn’t seem very secure, but it has worked OK for the last 3 years. I do have a coded backup copy in cloud storage, but I have never needed to use it yet.
I am worried that giving someone else my passwords will leave me vulnerable. Have you used LastPass, are you happy with it, have you ever been hacked?
LastPass has a system in place to make sure that your master password is only known to you and you alone. If you lost this password, even LastPass cannot recover it for you. So that tells you a lot about the security feature.
Then again, pen and paper is fine. Just don’t lost the paper OR let someone else sees it 🙂
Hi Cathy,
Indeed and as advised by a lot of computer IT personnel, people who conduct a lot of business online SHOULD use the type of software tool that you discussed in your great article. A single, encrypted master password that will store all of your regular email, business and other passwords in one area.
The product that you reviewed looks to be extremely easy to use and the cost per year, even upgrading to the premium package of $12/year certainly is quite affordable.
They also say that every several months or so, even in the creation of passwords that follow the rules of what would be considered a “strong” one, (lower/upper case letters, numbers. character/symbol signs) should be changed anyway. You should not have an email address have the same password for 2 years without making a change.
This product certainly would be something that everyone should consider purchasing. Thank you for sharing it with your readers, Cathy.
Hey Cathy – what a great time saving tool LastPass seems to be! You have no idea how much time I spend looking for passwords. THEN, I started using the same password at every site which I know is not a good idea and not safe. I have looked at some of the other brands but they were all so expensive. I also never thought about using one of these for all my business passwords – great suggestions. Thanks for making me think about this.
Hi Cathy, thanks for reviewing this free tool.
I’ve been looking for a while now for a way to organize my countless passwords and this seems to be a great one. Free version seems pretty complete for my needs too. May I ask what is Chrome extension? Is this like a shortcut to access an online application? I’m using Chrome as well but I don’t know about it. Thanks!
Welcome to my blog Carolyn,
Extensions are like plugins on WordPress – they can be installed and uninstalled according to your needs. You can find them under ‘Settings’ at your Chrome browser and it would bring you to a library of extensions which looks something like this. It offers a great source of functions to help improve your user experience on the internet.
If you need any help, just drop me a message at WA.
Hi Cathy,
That’s an interesting article you have written and I am certainly curious about it. I really like the generate master password feature. This means that passwords are not so easy to crack.
However, using LastPass seems like putting all your eggs in one basket to me. Instead of cracking several passwords on different accounts, it seems it’s now easier to crack one master password then you have access to a whole host of sensitive information.
Even if LastPass proves to be difficult to hack, then the computer generated password may be difficult to remember. Is there a way to reset your password if this ever happens?
Hi Danny,
Thank you for your question. First, here’s a simplified version that explains the security of LastPass – just to prove that it’s really difficult to hack. True – not a wise idea to put all your eggs in one basket, but for those who prefer convenience, this might be an efficient tool.
As for resetting password (I assume you are referring to the master passwords), LastPass has provided a thorough explanation here. Hope that helps.
Great info! I am always trying to remember my passwords, and sometimes I get locked out of my logins when I can’t remember something simple, such as I capitalized the first letter, etc. I’ll definitely be looking at this further. Thanks!
Great post about Last Pass Cathy!
I am always having trouble remembering all my different passwords from all my different sites. Believe it or not I only recently put them all in a Word Document. I used to only have them written down on a piece of paper. I like how Last pass syncs them across all your devices. I will definitely be giving this tool a try out.
Thanks for bringing LastPass to my attention.
Hi John,
Looks like you are searching for ways to organize your passwords. I am glad to know that you found my article at the right time. Hopefully, LastPass will help you manage better.
Hi!
Wow, that is great because I always forget my passwords and above all, I don’t know why, G Chrome does not keep them. But I have one question, are you sure this is 100% safe?
Hi Doru,
Try this – under your Google Chrome settings, go to ‘Show Advanced Settings’. Scroll down and under ‘Passwords and Forms’, mark “Offer to save your web passwords”. It should help your browser to memorize them.
Having said that, nothing is 100% safe on the internet. But as I mentioned in my comment to Peter, if you know how to manage your master password, you are adding more security for yourself.
Hi Cathy,
I have recently installed LastPass, after years of having a written list of passwords. These days you seem to need so many passwords I find having physical lists no longer practical. LastPass was easy to install and set up, I really would recommend it to everyone.
Just a note of caution, LastPass was hacked in June, but user accounts weren’t accessed. Still, they did recommend users to change their master passwords. I suppose that’s the risk, but it certainly makes life easier.
Hi Peter,
Thanks for the update and for sharing your experience with using LastPass. You never know what can happen even with the highest internet security system. Hackers always have their ways around it. So I guess, to keep things safe, it’s advisable to change your master keywords every 3 to 6 months or so.
Looks like a good idea. I get really frustrated with passwords so I have to keep a notebook with them in it. If anyone ever gets their hands on it, they’ll be able to compromise all my accounts. I’ve come across various software packages like this one in the past and I always had the same worry. What if the software is hacked?
I’m glad to see that LastPass has security features to prevent that from happening.
Hi Eoin,
With technologies these days, no one can really say what will happen online. For the time being, I am using it to manage my social networks account so even if they got hacked, it’s not really any sort of personal lost. As I become more confident with the tool, I will consider using it for bank account and such.
Hey Cathy,
I’m always finding something of value when I drop into your site.
This is a nemesis of mine, loosing a password, assigning a new password and thinking I wrote it down as a back up and then finding that somehow I must have written it down wrong. I had to take my computer to a repair shop over that one. Talk about timely and frustrating. What a mess.
I’ll be heading over to LastPass soon and do the download and take advantage of this awesome recommendation from you. I really appreciated that you have found it well received and used by big name companies. Why not let my little company benefit too!
Hey there Linda,
I believe all of us have had our fair share in loosing our passwords. I am pretty sure you are going to love using LastPass then.
Hey,
This is a very interesting tool. I heard of similar software like these but they didn’t seem to be half as secure as LastPass. It’s quite a vital product I think because in the last few months alone, I’ve signed up for at least 4 new things which required unique usernames and passwords. One day, I’ll lose all of them and forget half of them. I think this will be a great way to keep everything safe!
That’s so true Essi,
Whether you are a business blogger or just a regular internet user, a lot of sites that you visit these days will require you to sign up for a user account. I personally have like 10 over accounts for social networks and online tools and I have wasted time resetting my passwords for at least half of them because I kept forgetting the passwords. Hopefully this tool can help us organize better.
I save all of my passwords on a spreadsheet on my computer. I don’t know, I’m just not comfortable using a password site like this, especially for my bank accounts. I know they say it has the highest security. But it still scares me. Your review has made me feel a bit more comfortable though. I’ll check it out and see what I think. Thanks.
Hi Wendy,
I totally understand your reservation. With so many scams sites out there, it’s hard to trust what’s reliable and what’s not. I think spreadsheet works just fine, as long as you feel that it is the safest method to organize your passwords.
Hi Cathy.
It really sounds like a great software and not expensive at all. No monthly fee, but just a small amount each year if I read correctly. Is that it? I see though that you have downloaded the software for free on your computer to let it work. Do you know if you can still do this on a tablet?
Hi Guy,
I just downloaded an extension via my Chrome browser, not the entire software. The basic plan (with limited features) is free to use. As for mobile access, I believe it is available in Google Play. Not too sure about Apple devices though.
Hi Cathy!
I like this “treat your password like your toothbrush, don’t let anyone use it and change it every 3 months”. Sound advice right there!
I had never heard of LastPass, but can certainly see how useful it could be. I tend to use about 2 passwords for anything and I would like to believe they are strong. But there are always those accounts that ask you to create impossible passwords to remember as they need to contain a zillion characters in a specific order. So having LastPass generate such password would be an added bonus.
Hi Emily,
Creating ‘strong’ passwords with odd characters is certainly not what our mind is trained for, but it certainly has the benefits of preventing hackers. Hopefully, you’ll get to use LastPass more often for your other accounts.
Hi Cathy,
Another superb feature of it is the folders into which you put your bookmarks. You can launch every site in the folder, all at the same time, with one single click. Magic.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for that tip. I didn’t know. Will give it a try.