Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
What makes you assume important passwords are safer written down on paper and not stored in your browser?
My passwords all live in Firefox, and get entered automatically when I visit sites. Sites that use passwords pretty much all use https these days. I have a couple of password manager extensions that allow me to see what the stored passwords are, and export them to a file for import elsewhere. (I do a lot of playing with custom Firefox profiles. When I spin up a new one, my existing bookmarks and passwords get imported.)
I've never used something like Keypass or LastPass because I haven't needed them. (And there are folks who are paranoid about keeping password stores in the cloud.)
There are a site or two I visit that require you to change your password periodically, and when I visit I discover my saved password no longer works, and I must request an email to reset it. Annoying, but not worth complaint.
How might my passwords be extracted from my browser? I've never heard of that occurring. Most threats use things like keystroke loggers and man-in-the-middle attacks. Keystroke loggers are like viruses - easy enough to block if you have a secure system - and man-in-the-middle attacks require the attacker to be able to read your traffic. That's what https is all about. They can't.
No. How vulnerable we are depends upon our knowledge of securing our systems, and we are when we access the Internet. The vast majority of my usage is from my desktop, at home, with a router with security enabled and software and hardware firewalls. The only way someone gets access to my data is sitting down at my desktop's keyboard. If they can do that, I have much bigger problems than password security.)
Vulnerability tends to occur if you are accessing the Internet while traveling. I seldom do, and when I do, I'm likely doing it from a hotel room. I'm not online from a bar or restaurant with free Wifi.
Which is why you exercise proper precautions to prevent being hacked. It simply isn't a concern for me, because I use Gmail as primary email address. If I used Yahoo I'd be nervous, because they've had massive breaches. AOL got hacked in the old days, but they've tightened up since.
(Verizon is dropping their own email. They bought AOL a while back, and are advising fo0lks with verizon.net address to switch to an AOL account. They bought Yahoo, too. Whether Yahoo email will continue to exist is unclear. I personally doubt it. Why support two webmail solutions if you're Verizon?)
I've never had a problem with Thunderbird. It has quirks, but works well once you have it configured. And there are an assortment of addons for it to customize it more to your liking.
As mentioned, I don't use it for email. I could, and it does have my Gmail address configured, but that's strictly for the odd case where I might need to send email from Tbird. I almost never have to do that.
He lied to you to sell you something.
Hardly safer. Security begins with knowledge. He was able to push you on it because you lack knowledge. You need to repair that lack.
And how much do you actually use GoDaddy's free email? Since you have, like, and use Gmail, what do you need GoDaddy's email for?
Okay, you have a legitimate reason for using their service, and are (mostly) happy with them.
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Dennis
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Thanks a lot, Dennis. Yeah, you're really helping me repair my lack of knowledge. And I'm realizing I'm not as terribly vulnerable as I thought I was. I had the Godaddy free email because it came with the domain. Then it was so bad I upgraded to the Essentials. I read I could've re-routed (if that's the right term) so I could've used Gmail with that same email address I used with Godaddy but it seemed complicated and I was just too burned out to mess with it. Anyway, I'm committed to Essentials for three years and I like it so that's okay.