Web (2.0)
Useful But Underutilized: SafePasswd.com
I stumble on a site every so often that I simply don’t know what it’s purpose is. Today, I’m going to discuss such a site. It’s not that these sites are poorly coded, ugly, or that they don’t fill a particular niche. There just doesn’t seem to be any real need for them. SafePasswd.com is such a site.
If you haven’t already guessed it, SafePasswd is a site that generates safe passwords. There are plenty of settings and variables to choose from and if you don’t like a particular password, it will generate a new one for you with the click of a button. No doubt about it, if you need a password, this site is handy. It loads quick, generates even 256 character passwords in seconds, and works flawlessly.
The layout on SafePasswd is spartan–but that’s not necessarily bad. Simplicity is welcome with a tool like a password generator, and such bonuses as a password strength notifier and a length slider are a nice touch. SafePasswd could benefit from a button which copies the password directly to your computer’s clipboard, however.
Future plans for SafePasswd include implementing the API on a variety of sites or programs (if they will allow it) to automatically generate safer passwords for users of the millions of web apps out there. It all sounds pretty slick, although the API isn’t finished yet.
So what did I mean when I said this site doesn’t have a real purpose? The problem with password generation sites like SafePasswd is that most people just don’t give a damn. They’re too stuck in their ways, using the same old password for each and every site they sign up to. Learn a new password? The majority of users say no way.
The Details:
Developer: Robert Accettura
Version: Beta
Price: Free
Website: SafePasswd.com
I agree with you, a site like this could potentially be very important but most online users stick with one password and use it for everything. I’m not too good myself either - I don’t create long passwords that are hard to remember for all of my sites. I do make them harder for the sites that are important to me, such as my blog. But for sites I don’t really use or care about, such as Youtube, I have three or four different passwords I go between.
The problem seems to me, that generating strong passwords is only half the battle. Once you have a strong password, remembering and using it is where the difficulty lies.
Check out KeePass (keepass.info), originally for windows but has been ported to X for Linux/MacOS.
Storing individual strong passwords in a single password vault may not be perfect, but it certainty seems to be a happy medium between security and ease of use.