Can Google’s new Smart Lock replace the LastPass?

Can Google’s new Smart Lock replace the LastPass?

Can Google’s new Smart Lock replace the LastPassOn the average, a person uses more than 25 websites – let the smartphone applications alone. Remembering all the passwords for these applications is bothering task, but you may wonder why not keep a single password for all of the websites? Yes, you can, but that’s ultra-risky. Many hackers are aware that most of the people are too lazy to change the passwords and keep a single password for all of their sign ups, and they exploit this fact to the max.

There are many ways you can boost up your password strength:

Using Capitals and symbols

Using Capitals and symbols (&^ %$#) can highly strengthen your passwords and make them extremely difficult to hack.

e.g. Password: silverspoon

Strong version: S!lV3rsp00n

Using the site name as a prefix or suffix

You can avoid using the same password for every site by simply using the first three or four letters as a suffix or a prefix with your password.

General Password: S!lV3rsp00n

Yahoo Password:   yahoS!lV3rsp00n (space registers as a character)

These are some basic ways of increasing the difficulty of your password, but if you are too lazy to the above, you will most probably shift to the password manager like most of the people.

Password managers remember your passwords for you; they can generate complex passwords for you; and they can also save the sites you love as bookmarks.

LastPass

LastPass is the leading name in the password managers (Even I use it). It’s a very handy service when it comes to passwords. You don’t have to do anything. It does it all for you. Whenever you sign up for a new site, a prompt will appear asking you to save the site in LastPass, and you have to click on the yes – that’s all.

LastPass has both: the free and the paid version.

Smartlock

SmartLock is a password manager by Google. Google is a very big name in the internet and many people rely on Google applications for their household, business and personal management.

How’s SmartLock different than other passwords managers?

SmartLock helps you manage your online passwords like all the other password managers. But there are some features that make it a little different.

App password management:

Unlike other password managers, SmartLock offer application password management for most of the android applications.

Sign in Bypass:

Another feature that is very appealing is the sign in bypass. It lets you completely skip the Sign in page, and takes you directly to the web or the applications – which we think is very nice.

What Smartlock lacks

No password generation:

Most of the other password managers have built in password creators that create strong passwords. SmartLock doesn’t have any built in feature for password generation.

Chrome only!

Chrome is a very reliable browser, but having this application only available for chrome is a very big negative in our view. We, however, are hopeful that it will be soon made available to other platforms like Google Keep.

SmartLock or LastPass?

At this phase, we think it is far behind the other password managers, because even though it has introduced some features, it hasn’t offered anything game-changing. It also lacks some of the features that are already available in the other password managers.

Despite of all these things, we must not oversee that it is the Google way to start small and develop according to the feedback. Moreover, unlike others SmartLock is completely free – no paid versions. SmartLock appeals with its simplicity and convenience. If you want something simple, you should definitely give it a try.

 

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