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June 27, 2006
KeePass Password Safe - Manage all of your passwords easily.
When it comes to passwords, most people only have one, which they use for a multitude of machines and websites. The problem with this is that anyone who finds out that one password now has your password to everything. In addition, if you ever decide to change that password, it would be very time-consuming and you probably would not be able to remember all the places that you need to change.
Enter KeePass Password Safe. KeePass is a password manager and secure password generator that allows you to have a different password for each website you frequent. In fact, I don't even know any of my passwords except for the one password needed to get into KeePass. All I know is that they are all different and they are all a jumbled mix of letters, numbers, and other characters.
Now, if someone hacks a website I frequent and gets access to my password, they will not be able to log on to anywhere else because all my passwords are different.
Some other features include an optional key-disk (so even if someone steals my password file and knows the master password, they still won't be able to access anything without the key-disk), a secure password generator, the ability to export the database, and support for multiple languages. The program also allows you to categorize your passwords into different groups (shopping, discussion boards, etc.) and can put an expiration date on passwords that need to be changed after a certain length of time.
Of course, KeePass is open-source so if there is a feature you want, you can always add it (the program is written in C++). There is also a plug-in architecture that you can take advantage of to extend the program even more.
The core KeePass program is only for Windows, but there are ports to Linux, Mac OS X, PalmOS, and Pocket PC so it can be used pretty much anywhere. I would recommend keeping your password file on a USB drive or FTP site so that you can easily access it from anywhere.
Give it a try. I am sure that once you do, you will wonder how you functioned without it.
Posted by Chuck at June 27, 2006 04:50 PM
Comments
Too confusing!
Posted by: Chris at June 30, 2006 11:38 AM