How do I make a password?

It’s really important to have a strong password for email and other online accounts. Imagine the financial losses if a hacker got into your online back account or the ignominy of having someone impersonate you on social networking web sites through your account.

This article has been written primarily for beginners and offers tips on how to make a password that will protect your online information and identity. However, nothing is perfect. These tips on creating secure passwords are not foolproof! How you use my advice is entirely up to you! And so a dash of common sense is highly recommended.

Most registration forms require you to make a password

Generally you will be asked to make a password when you register for an account at an online service. Take the example of email accounts from Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail. The sign up forms on all the three services have fields for entering the password twice. Furthermore, a conveniently located strength bar lets you know whether the password is strong or weak.

A common question is: why do most sign up forms have two fields for making the password? The answer has more to do with human psychology than programming – typing something twice in quick succession will at least ensure that you remember it for a few minutes! Also understand that the password you enter in the two fields is not visible to anyone (including you) – the characters are replaced by a dot or an asterisk symbol.

What makes a good password?

We now come to the meat of the article. Let me start by telling you what not to have as the password.

• Don’t be foolish and put the word “password” as the password! I know at least one person who had done this.
• Don’t use the names of your spouse, children, dog, birthplace, favourite movie or song etc. This information is known to acquaintances and friends and may also be available online on your profile pages of social networking web sites like Facebook or MySpace.
• Continuing the above point, avoid using something which is very obvious.
• Do not make the password too short – only a few characters.

So how do you make a strong password?
A good password is one that is extremely difficult for others to guess. At the same time, it should not be so complex that even you are not able to recall after a few days (or hours!). This is what you should do (not everything listed below will be applicable for all sign up forms – be judicious when required).

• You can have both alphabet and numbers in passwords.
• Put in a mix of upper and lowercase letters.
• Throw in a few symbols. These can serve either as word separators or substitutes for alphabet; such as the “@” sign for the letter “a”.
• Make the most of the allotted characters. The password strength bar is there to help you, however, don’t strain yourself in trying to get that bar to hit the maximum.

Making a strong password for your online accounts (email and others) is just the beginning. To ensure online information and your identity remain safe, you need to know how to prevent account hacking by taking care of passwords which is the topic of another article – keep reading.

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