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Q: I read your “It’s Geek to Me” about lazily using passwords. (Geek Note: I.G.T.M. #951, Oct 12, 2025 and I.G.T.M. #953, Oct 26, 2025) Well, I’m guilty of doing that since I use a little red book to write them down in. But, when a site generates a password, I don’t want to write that huge string down in my book. There again lazy. But yet I know I need to use that password. So, my question is how do you advise us older folks (or possibly younger) to remember that long string other than taking a picture (that’s my new way) and filling our phone’s memory up?  Of course, Google will kindly remember it for us but sometimes I want to log onto to that particular website on my phone using DuckDuckGo and that doesn’t work.

– Judy W.
Odessa, Texas

 A: This series on passwords has generated a lot of buzz, and, I think, stepped on a few delicate toes.  If I did my job properly, I laid bare exactly how bad some people’s password practices are, and hopefully I pointed them in a new, more secure direction.

In response to your submission, Judy, the first thing I want to say is that you are under no obligation to accept the giant, ugly, unmemorizable passwords that some sites generate for you.  They offer these because they meet the password guidelines they’ve set for their site, and the passwords meet the rules – now considered obsolete – of passwords having certain combinations of letters, numbers and special characters, and are of a sufficient length to make them difficult or nearly impossible to crack.

If you look carefully, there will be a link to create your own password instead.  Generally, it appears in a smaller font than the link to use their monster auto-generated password, but it should be present on any page that offers you monster passwords.  If crafting your own, be sure to use the guidelines I provided in the last few columns, and, of course, make a password that uses all the rules that the site has established, and you’ll be good to go with a passphrase that is far easier to memorize.  Remember, don’t re-use this passphrase on other sites, so on the off chance it does get compromised it will be the one and only site that does.

You brought up a good point with Google, and one that I haven’t mentioned here in the column before.  That is, Google offers its own Password Manager, which, unlike other commercial-grade password managers, is free, like most of Google’s other products.  For more information on Google Password Manager, including how to get started, visit TinyURL.com/IGTM-0954.

Although Google Password Manager is primarily designed for Google Chrome, it also works seamlessly with Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera providing all the features of saving passwords, and auto-filling them on web sign-ins.  The reason Google Password Manager doesn’t work with DuckDuckGo is because that browser is highly privacy-focused and so doesn’t integrate with Google services for password management.  However, (and it’s a big “however”) you can use the Google system to create and manage your passwords and import them into the DuckDuckGo browser on both the desktop and mobile versions.  Using this kludge the passwords will not be synced automatically with your Google account like they would be on other browser platforms, but that’s one of the prices to pay for the extra privacy afforded by DuckDuckGo. 

Your other options for passwords when using DuckDuckGo include using the browser’s own built-in password and bookmark feature called “Sync & Backup”.  It is end-to-end encrypted and does not use Google services or even require a Google account.  Finally, DuckDuckGo supports integration of 3^rd-party password managers such as Bitwarden.  This might be a good choice for you if you want to use a separate, dedicated password manager, and still retain your DuckDuckGo browser.

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