Ahh passwords… we’ve all been told we need stronger passwords, but keeping track of them all in your head isn’t easy.
You may have heard of password managers, but it’s not easy to know where to start with them. Nowadays there are so many different password managers, so in this post I’ll let you know a couple of my personal favourites, that don’t compromise your online security.
Table of Contents:
- Why do I need a password manager?
- Picking the right password manager
- What I would recommend
- What next?
Section 1 – Why do I need a password manager?
You may think that you have a strong password, one that you can remember, and one you think is secure. However, if you’re using the same password on more than one website, I’d argue it isn’t secure at all.
Why? Websites can have data breaches, either through weaknesses in code, or through social engineering, and not every company is great at storing data correctly. Thankfully, whilst most websites aren’t storing your password in plain text anymore, it isn’t difficult for those who know what they’re doing to extract your raw password from these leaks.
You can probably see where this is going. If you use the same password for most, or all of the websites you use, maybe even with the same email address, it isn’t going to take much for a login attempt to be made on another website you use. The bad actors have your details ready to use.
How to combat this? Use a different password for each and every website you sign up to. I know this sounds daunting, but I promise it’s easier than it sounds and it could very well save you major headaches in the future.
If one website gets breached, you just change the password on the one website, no need to worry about other accounts you own getting breached.
Section 2 – Picking the right password manager
You have probably heard of a number of password managers, and you’ve probably heard of data breaches with a small handful of them. For example, in December 2025, password manager LastPass was fined £1.2 million by the ICO following their 2022 data breach in which 1.6 million UK customers had their personal information compromised.
This, obviously, isn’t a good thing. This can expose sensitive details such as your email address, password, notes and attachments – the very things you’re trusting them to protect.
In my opinion, when looking for a good password manager, you’re looking for three main things:
- End-to-end encryption (E2EE)
- Zero knowledge architecture
- Open source
Properly implemented end-to-end encryption ensures that only you can see your data. If the servers containing your information get breached, your data remains safe.
Zero knowledge architecture limits what your password manager provider knows. Whilst they store your data in an encrypted format, they never hold the decryption keys.
Finally, an open source password manager means that the source code is open to scrutiny by leading security experts. In my opinion, a company which chooses to publish and make available its source code is a very positive step.
In my opinion I would say that these are non-negotiable features any good password manager should have.
Section 3 – What I would recommend
Of course, what you use is ultimately your choice, but I would recommend one of the following, which has all three of the above features:
Bitwarden
Bitwarden is a standalone password manager, it has initiative user interface and a great community behind it. It has a free tier, as well as an inexpensive paid tier, which adds additional benefits. I will go over Bitwarden and its features in a later post.
Proton Pass
Proton Pass is part of a suite provided by Proton – a privacy focused suite of tools. In my opinion, the Proton suite is extremely good. Much like if you are currently in the Google or Microsoft ecosystem, if you decide to use Proton Pass, using the rest of the suite is probably a good idea. Of course, you can just use Proton Pass as a standalone option. I will go over Proton Pass, and Proton’s other features in a later post.
Section 4 – What next?
Now you have an account with one of these services, it’s time to store all your logins, notes and even credit/debit card numbers. Not only is it secure, but it serves as a convenient way to access this information when paying for stuff online.
I will create a post going into detail on both of these password managers soon, however in essence, as long as your master password is secure, and has never been used on any websites before, it should be safe to use. You can use this excellent tool to check if your intended password has been seen in any data breaches before. It’s also worth being aware that even if your password hasn’t been seen in any data breaches, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good password, or that it hasn’t been in any non-publicly disclosed breaches.
Your master password should be long, contain a mixture of upper and lowercase characters, numbers and special characters. However, it has to be something you can remember. Due to the nature of these password managers being E2EE and zero knowledge, if you forget this password, you will lose all your data in this account. There is nothing the company can do to help you if you were in this situation.