96 PCWorld MARCH 2021HERE’S HOW
IMAGE: ROB SCHULTZB
ack in the day, conventional
wisdom said to never store your
passwords in your browsers.
That’s not true anymore. Modern
browsers are much more secure, tied to
accounts protected by two-factor
authentication. Most of the major ones can
now double as a basic password manager,
complete with the ability to create strong,
random passwords—Microsoft’s Edge
browser (go.pcworld.com/mseg) is the
latest to support the feature. Most people
will still probably be better off using athird-party password manager (go.pcworld.
com/3ppm), though.
There’s no doubt that using your
browser’s password manager can solve some
headaches. It makes it easy to use strong,
unique passwords for every site and service
you use, eliminating risk from reusing
passwords. (If a website gets breached,
criminals can use your leaked login to sign
into other sites if you reuse passwords.) Some
will even tell you if your login information has
had a security breach and prompt you to
switch passwords. And browsers are free!Why your browser’s password
manager isn’t good enough
Stand-alone password managers work better and extend beyond your browser.
BY BRAD CHACOS