With so many websites how can I possibly keep all of my online accounts both secure and easily accessible? Lastpass.com is the answer to this question.

Here’s the problem. It’s hard to keep track of all the great new websites and services that come out. Coming up with a unique password for each of these sites is even more difficult. Of course, you could just use the same password for each account, that would sure make remembering your login information easier. Unfortunately it would be very insecure.

When you create an account on a website, you're trusting that company to keep the information you give them safe. Some of these websites are very insecure. Now lets say you're using the same password for every site. You find a new webservice and create an account using your global password. Now, if that site is ever compromised and somebody gets a hold of your email address and password, all they would have to do is check to see if it works for your Amazon account, Paypal, Gmail, and Facebook. In a matter of minutes all of your online accounts can be compromised.

The secure alternative to this common practice is to use a different password on every site you login to. But how are you going to keep track of 100+ passwords? This is where Lastpass.com comes in. Lastpass is a webservice that records all of your websites, user account names, and passwords in an encrypted database. They offer plugins for every major browser that autofill all of your information for you after authenticating. If you need to use Lastpass on a public computer you can login to Lastpass.com and create a bookmarklet that will fill in all login information for you automatically.

Lastpass is a great option for managing your online accounts. I highly recommend it.

Here are some articles and videos with more information on Lastpass:

• An article about the recent Lastpass "hack": Why We Can't Have Nice Things
• Lifehacker's Gina Trapani on Lastpass (with Leo Laporte):
  
• How to use the Lastpass bookmarklet on public computers: