We all know passwords are the bane of any internet users online experience. So many sites, each with their own authentication requirements.
I came across this handy site called passwordmeter to help test the strength of your passwords.
It’s cool because it gives you an instant visual response for your passwords based upon things like;
- Number of characters
- Upper and lower case
- Letters or numbers only
- etc
I typically use several passwords and found that I might need to strengthen them up, but I did have a couple which scored over 70% which is good 
Update
People have commented that this is a security risk, i.e. submitting your passwords to an unknown web site. My response is that I think the point is more to test the strength of the ‘types’ of passwords you’re currently using.
So if you test for “password1″ you’re not going to get very far. Then you can learn what makes a good password, i.e. mixed case, symbols and alphanumeric etc
Of course…a password doesn’t mean much without something to authenticate against. But you’ve been warned
That’s a really interesting site. I find it *extremely* hard to make a secure password
Even when I type in a seemingly random set of characters and symbols, I usually get around a 34%, but most of the time, it will jump from 40% right down to 0% with an additional character.
I am bad as passwords
Ben Nadel
May 30th, 2008
Yeah it’s interesting what makes a ’strong’ password, and often it’s not just the length of the string.
Something we should all look at more I suppose.
Michael Sharman
May 30th, 2008
Thats a nice website. Good find. The maximum I could score was 62% .
Anuj Gakhar
May 30th, 2008
I use 1password (mac only) and consistantly received 96%-100% scores and I only ever have to remember 1 global password. I can’t recommend it high enough. Mac’s on the other hand… well talk to Michael about that
Mat
May 31st, 2008
@Mat - haha, yeah yeah. Talk about timing…I’m moving back to Mac (from Linux) on Tuesday
Hope you’re all well, see you at WebDU
Michael Sharman
June 1st, 2008