Passwords are the main barrier we have to prevent intruders on our accounts. It is what protects us online when we register for a service, enter our bank, social networks or any platform. They must be complex, difficult to find out, and meet the basic requirements to be truly safe. For this we can make use of tools such as key managers. There are many options that we have at our disposal. In this article we are going to talk about AuthPass , a free and open source program.
The importance of having password managers
Having key managers allows us to manage all the passwords that we have created in a secure way. If we do things well, it means that we have created a different password for each service or platform that we use. It will also be complex, with letters (uppercase and lowercase), numbers, and other special symbols. All this in a random way.
Remembering all the passwords we have created is difficult. We can especially forget those keys that we do not use frequently. Hence the importance of having this type of tools that help us in our day to day.
We have both free and paid options at our disposal, as well as for all types of operating systems. There are even extensions for the browser, although that can have its downsides as well.
AuthPass, the free program to manage passwords
Within all these options that we mention, we are going to talk about AuthPass . It is a free and open source program that offers us the possibility of managing our keys in a secure way.
It should be mentioned that it is multiplatform, so we can use it on different devices and operating systems. As a highlight we should also mention that it supports the KeePass 2.x database (KDBX 3.x). When we start it for the first time it will give us the opportunity to load an existing database or create a new one. We can upload this database from our hard drive or load from services such as Dropbox or Google Drive.
The first thing we have to do to use AuthPass is download it from its official website . It is available for operating systems such as Windows, Linux, macOS or Android. In our case we have tested it in the Microsoft operating system.
Once we install it and run it, a window like the one in the image below will appear. According to our case, if we already have a database that we want to upload or we want to start from scratch, we will mark one or the other option.
If we mark start from scratch, it will ask us for a name for the file it is going to create, as well as a master password . The latter is very important, as it will be the key to access all the others.
When we do this step, it will show us a very intuitive screen to create new passwords. We can add as many as we want and always have them stored there. We simply have to click on Create your first password .
We can assign it a title to know what it is about, the username and password, as well as a URL that could be, for example, the address to log in to that site. We can also create other custom fields.
Automatically, once we have created that password, it will be added to the left, where all the keys that we have stored there are displayed.
If we enter the options section above, among other things we can see a key generator. This is very useful when we want to create a password that is totally random and that also meets the minimum security requirements. We can mark that it has additional characters, numbers, letters, as well as a certain length.
When we close the application and want to reopen it to consult a password, it will ask us for the master password that we should never forget. We can not only save access codes here, but also any information that we want to protect.
Regarding preferences, although it does not have too many, we can choose a dark or light theme, as well as modify the visual density or the scale of the text.
Otherwise it is a simple application, which has the basics to have a secure password manager where we can store all our keys. As we have mentioned, it is available for both mobile devices and desktop computers. In our case we have used it in Windows 10, but the operation is the same in the different operating systems for which it is available.
