Consumer Password Manager: Google Smart Lock


If you are using Google Chrome for your web browsing, then welcome to the club. But we are pretty sure almost everyone is in it.
Then you should have seen something called Google Smart Lock asking you every time you log in to a new website for it to save your username and password.
You are henceforth, no stranger to password managers.
What Google Smart Lock’s lack is that master password to keep those various passwords that you have, safe.
Before we go any further, just what can a password manager help you with?
1. For starters, it can help you remember your different passwords throughout the various websites that you have accounts with;
2. It can also generate passwords for you whenever you need one for whichever account that you have on whatever website;
3. Help you fill in your details on website forms;
4. It should also help you to use this across your devices on any platform.
Google Smart Lock
This is a free and very basic password manager that Google provides for its Chrome users.
The first thing you have to do is to make sure that you are logged in to your account on Chrome.
Not the email account, but the account tagged to your Chrome browser.
Don’t know what we mean?
It’s the silhouette of the person located at the top right hand corner of you Chrome browser.
If you see that, instead of the first name used in your gmail account, it means you are not logged in.
So go ahead and log in.
Let it learn your username and passwords for all the sites that you will visit.
The downside is that your device must have Chrome on it.
Security Alert!
Why should you be concerned here?
If your password for the Gmail account is not at least alphanumerical, it is very likely that all your other passwords saved with the Smart Lock is vulnerable.
Make sure that your password is at the very least alphanumerical. It just means a combination of the following:
1. Has at least 8 characters; which includes:
2. At least 1 alphabet;
3. At least 1 Uppercase alphabet;
4. At least 1 number; and
5. At least one symbol (optional, but great to increase the strength of your password).