After having read many articles with password tips, I’ve come to the conclusion that painfully few are aware of the painfully obvious.
So here goes!
First order of business: Forget about the password, start thinking of the pass phrase. Like it or not, a short sentence can easily be more secure than a complex password. Example 1: Randomly generated password: “Tda,%Bn&x+in”. This has an entropy of 12 upper/lower-case characters, numbers and special signs. It’s also pretty much impossible to remember.
Example 2: “I huggled an owl while sitting in a tree!” has an entropy of 41 lower/upper-case characters and special signs.