The best free password generator

A strong password is:

• Unique: Unique passwords make sure that you’re able to minimize the impact of a data breach where your password is stolen.
• Long: A password with seven characters (numbers, upper and lowercase letters, and symbols) takes around four seconds to be broken by a password cracker. Make them, at least, 11 characters long.
• Complex: You can have the longest password in the world, but if it’s only numbers, a password cracker can break it quite quickly. It’s essential that passwords are a combination of numbers, upper and lowercase letters, and symbols.
• Random: ‘birthday123!?’ fills in all the above requirements, but it’s still not a good password. Why? It follows a logic that can be easily cracked by hackers with more advanced tools. Passwords need to be unpredictable, with no patterns whatsoever.

Security-focused individuals who follow password hygiene best practices end up with dozens of random and unique passwords that are impossible for them to remember.

Fortunately, there are many ways to store and protect your passwords, each one with different levels of security and convenience:

• Spreadsheets: There are several spreadsheet templates for storing passwords out there (free and paid) that you can use to save your passwords locally. However, even if you password-protect your file, it’s not very secure, especially if you own a laptop that you bring with you outside of the house, which can potentially be lost or stolen.
• Password organizer books: If you prefer to write down your passwords, we recommend at least using a password organizer book, which is a notebook with pages designed specifically to write down login details. Some even come with a lock or similar ways to secure the written information. However, these books aren’t convenient and can be easily stolen.
• Password managers: Cloud password managers are the ones that provide the best mix of security and convenience, considering that you go with one of the best providers that encrypt your data end-to-end and provide other security measures to ensure no hacker is able to get your information in case there’s a data breach. On the other hand, you can easily and securely share passwords with others, have joint vaults with family or team members, and have all information synced on the devices you use.
• Local password managers: For the more suspicious ones, a local password manager might do the trick. Instead of storing your information in the provider’s servers, everything is kept locally on your PC. It is the most secure option of them all, but it can be inconvenient, as you aren’t able to directly share login details with others or sync passwords between devices.