Privacy Matters

In the previous post I wrote about the benefits of password managers: convenience and security. Right after publishing that post I realised there's more to say about Bitwarden specifically. I suppose it shows just how good the software really is. So without further ado, I present 2 more features that make Bitwarden a very useful tool every day.

The first feature that's perhaps not unique to Bitwarden is the password generator. I mentioned last time that the master password is the only password that you need to remember. But what about other, regular passwords? Here's where the generator comes in. It can generate strong, unique passwords for you. You can specify the length and the type of characters: letters, numbers, and special signs. Now, here's the deal. Humans are terrible at creating and remembering strong passwords. So do yourself a favour and start using random, generated passwords from now on. Ok, I can sense you wondering: “But I won't be able to remember such passwords”. Actually, it doesn't matter. Like I said, you just need to know your master password. All the others? They are safely stored in your vault and you don't even have to know them. I certainly don't know 90% of my passwords, and that's fine. The few ones I decided to memorize are for accounts where I can't easily paste them from my Bitwarden vault (e.g. at work, on a shared computer). Even then, I could just look them up on my phone and enter them manually. Summing up, whenever you need to come up with a new password (or change the existing one), use the generator. For example, all of my passwords are at least 16 characters long and include all types of characters.

The second feature I'd like to discuss is called “Send”. In short, it allows you to share sensitive data (plain text or attachment) with a recipient. Let me give you an example. Say you want to send some documents to your lawyer. The documents contain sensitive information like your address or social security number (PESEL in Poland). In this scenario, you can utilise “Send” to share the documents, protect them with an agreed upon password, and even set the expiry date. It surely beats sending critical data over unencrypted email, or, worse still, on Messenger (you know which one). I admit that I don't use this feature often but when I do I'm glad I have the option.

That's it for today. Thank you for reading and I hope you'll find this information useful.

Reply to this on the fediverse: @michal@101010.pl