After Gawker had a massive security leak, I began to rethink my password solution. I had essentially 3 classes of passwords, high, medium, low. High security passwords, used for financial instituions, were unique for each site and saved in an email thread in my Gmail. Medium and low security had a handful of rotating passphrases and easily guessed 4-8 letter passwords. In general, I didn’t care if one of my medium or low level security accounts was hacked since access to those would net nothing.

However, so many of my web services are crosslinked that it was becoming difficult to keep track of my security holes (see the Twitter hacks as a good example).

So, I figured it was high time that I start using a password manager. After looking at my options, I chose 1Password. My requirements:

• OS X support – my main computer and laptop
• Chrome extension – main browser
• Dropbox integration – Drop dead easy syncing between all my devices
• Android Support – currently my main phone
• iPhone Support – previously my main phone but I’d like to keep my options open

1Password fulfilled all these and fulfilled them extremely well. The OS X is easily one of the most well thought UIs I’ve used in a long time. Dropbox integration is built directly into both the OS X and Android applications. Agile Web Solutions, the company behind 1Password, is a commercial endeavor. Usually I favor open source solutions, but in this case I’m guaranteed longevity. (I imagine migrating to another password manager will be a nightmare.)

I spent a few hours transferring and changing my passwords on all the accounts I could remember. The count is up to 51! Odds are that 1 out of 51 of these sites will have a security breach at some point. Now that all my passwords are unique, I can sleep easy.