Manage Your Passwords

Open sesame!

If only logging on to your Amazon.com account were that easy.

Since nearly every online merchant requires that customers create personal shopping accounts, it’s likely that you have more than one user name and password--and don’t remember which one opens what account.

One online service, Catavault (www.catavault.com), boasts an “all access pass” to the Internet, saving user names and passwords for more than 3,500 sites.

Yes, you must create a user name and password to obtain a Catavault account, but the service claims that’s the only combination you’ll need to remember.

To get started, you input your combinations from other sites, then save them in your personal “vault.” Catavault says it encrypts the data before storing it and does not give employees access to personal information.

When you want to shop at any site at which you have registered, simply log on to your vault, which has links to all of the sites. Click on the link, and automatically log on to that account.

Voila! Open sesame.

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Christine Frey