Introduction

What good security practice demands:

Strong passwords that are hard to guess.
Different passwords at each site.
Periodically changing existing passwords.

Why you probably aren't practicing good security:

Strong passwords are difficult to remember.
Juggling a multitude of passwords is a pain.
Updating passwords compounds the memorization problem.

How Password Hasher helps:

Strong passwords are automatically generated.
The same master key produces different passwords at many sites.
You can quickly upgrade passwords by "bumping" the site tag.
You can upgrade the master key without updating all sites at once.
It supports different length passwords.
It supports special requirements, such as digit and punctuation characters.
All data is saved to the browser's secure password database.

Concepts

Site Tag

A site tag is a simple name, e.g. "google" or "msn", assigned to a site and used to scramble the master key. For light and medium security levels a default site tag is assigned and then provided whenever you return to the site. The site tag just needs to be unique. It does not need to be complex.

Master Key

A master key is a strong password you choose and use for many or all sites. Since site tags scramble the master key to create unique passwords, you only need more than one master key when you want to upgrade it for additional security. At that point you begin updating passwords based on the new master key one site at a time. You don't have to do them all at once.

Hash Word

A hash word is the result of scrambling the master key with a site tag. It becomes the site password. You give the master key to Password Hasher and it enters the hash word into the site's password field.

Using the Password Hasher

You can bring up the dialog in any one of the following ways.

Click on a marker next to a password field.
Press the Control-F6 key combination when in a password field.
Choose Password Hasher from either the Tools menu or the right-click popup menu on a password field.