PassByCode

I’m often tempted, like many others out there, to use the same password for all the services I’m using. However, I strongly discourage this practice, as it can make you lose everything.

Just imagine someone taking over your favorite game’s account and from there, your email, IMs and social network, just because you use the same passcode. PassByCode is a tiny tool to help you generate strong and unique passwords for all your accounts, helping you stay safe and secure online.

The app comes with a rather small interface, but feels it’s more than enough given the role of the tool. You can get started by entering the desired information, which in this case is the service name, nickname, service login or email along with any of your secrets.

The password is generated instantly, and you can preview and copy it to a third-party password manager. The app recommends that you remember the details of the data you entered, meaning every character, as the final passcode is generated using your letters and numbers.

The aforementioned process is known as hash-based password generation and relies on MD5 hash. The cryptographic algorithm that takes input data (like text) and produces a fixed-size string of characters, known as a hash value or digest.

Although I almost missed it at first, the app comes with window capture protection. Sure, the chances of this happening are not high, especially if you don’t allow remote connections or unauthorized access to your PC. But it’s not impossible, and the option simply adds an extra level of security.

I’ve come across many password generators that allow you to also store and access them. While PassByCode does not include this feature, it’s still a decent tool to help you generate passcodes that meet nowadays security standards.