BOOST YOUR PASSWORDS

Say goodbye to password pains with the Passwords app and these privacy protectors

- CARRIE MARSHALL

THESE DAYS, WE use passwords for almost everything we do with our devices. We have passwords to stop other people using our Macs, and passwords to log into our streaming services. Our online accounts are password protected, and so are many of our apps. We provide passwords when we shop and when we connect to Wi-Fi in public and at home.

We have so many passwords, and they're so complicated, that it's impossible to remember them all. So thank goodness for Apple's Passwords app on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, which does it all for you. We've just checked ours, and our app is currently looking after nearly 800 passwords.

Passwords are the keys to your digital kingdom, so it's important to keep them secure. Good passwords help protect privacy, vanquish villains, and frustrate fraudsters - and thanks to the tools and tips we'll explore in these pages, you'll discover the best kind of passwords, the best ways to protect them, and the best apps to remember them.

As essential as they are, passwords are only part of your digital defenses against various villains, so we'll also discover the extra tools and tricks that can keep the baddies at bay.

BIGGER, BETTER, STRONGER

Why password complexity and strength matters

THE VERY FIRST computer password is older than Apple; it was created in 1961 by US computer scientist Fernando Corbato. He needed to give each user of a shared computer private access, so he used a technique that dates back to at least Roman times.

Passwords are believed to have been invented by the Roman military: they would engrave a "watchword" on a wooden tablet, and if you didn't know that day's watchword, the night guards wouldn't let you pass.