How to convince older family members to use Password Manager?

[mayank11280]

I have some older family members who are facing issues with mandatory periodic password changes, that too requiring complex passwords by many websites but especially the banks (you know which one I am talking about).

I have tried convincing them to use a password manager. But they feel it’s a big hassle. And I can’t blame them, especially when changing password is required. Changing password in password manager is such a tricky thing, especially with BitWarden that I can’t recommend it. I haven’t found any easy in Apple Passwords either. (They are in Apple Ecosystem)

So, my questions for you:
1. How to convince the older members to use a Password Manager?
2. Which PM will be the best for their use cases, considering regular changes required?

 

[ishanjain28]

I self host bitwarden. I signed up 24 family and friends and around 18 of them still use it regularly.

What helped me was,

1. Installing and logging it in on all their devices.
2. Teaching them how to use it and why it was beneficial. Almost all of them were either reusing passwords and had lost accounts before or they kept forgetting password and had to reset it every few months.
3. Over the next few months, Just being there to help them out. They had questions on adding new entries or changing passwords or saving additional data for a website.

For you, I think it's important to make them realize the value of using a password manager. Play it by telling them, They only ever have to remember 1 password and nothing else!!

As for the complexities of changing passwords in the manager, I suggest trying out 1password. If the experience is subpar there, then that's just how things are for now and there is nothing you can do.

Also since you mentioned regular changes are required, I am guessing these websites are written by obtuse people who intentionally make lives harder for people who use password manager. So that's just extra annoying.

As an example, Bitwarden does support updating password for a website when it detects it was changed but bank websites intentionally overwrite the text field with gibberish and send the real password separately so if you click on that change password button shown by the password manager, It'll set the password field in record to garbage and your real password will be lost.

Idiotic acts like this require extra care from password managers and most afaik have not gotten around to it yet.