Spy.com may receive financial compensation from affiliate and advertising partnerships on this page and/or when you make a purchase after clicking through partnership links.
The only way to get through the beginning of a new school year is to stay organized. Keeping science and history notebooks separate is one thing, but arranging one’s digital life is arguably more important. Student ID numbers, portal log-ins, and other essential codes for academic life all need to stay in order, or assignments can pile up fast. This is why all students, young and seasoned, should have Dashlane on their side.
Dashlane is our favorite password and data protection tool because it’s one of the safest and most secure password managers available. Their online manager tool is intuitive and easy to access, and it won’t slow you down when logging on to turn in an assignment last minute.
Safety and Organization First
Writing down that locker combo/student ID/list of log-ins in a spiral notebook for anyone to see is a terrible idea. Instead, store it all in Dashlane, where it’s always at your fingertips but in the safest and most secure manner possible. It’s also easier to transition a list of passwords into adult life when it’s not bound by ink and paper.
Once you’re out of school, of course, that list of essential information you need to recall and protect only gets longer and more complicated. Dashlane can automatically generate random passwords between 4-40 characters for extra security and allows you to create a combination of letters, digits, and characters as well.
If you can remember a randomly-generated 40-character chain without storing it somewhere, you should take that show on the road, or go to Vegas and count cards. But with Dashlane, you don’t have to remember a thing. You can automatically create the safest password possible, and Dashlane will store it for you in a virtually unassailable app. Even Dashlane does not know your passwords due to its zero-knowledge architecture.
Dashlane’s interface is exceptionally well designed — clean and neat and impeccably organized — so your passwords are right there when you, and only you, need them, across all of your devices.
Dashlane’s Top-Tier Encryption and Security
Dashlane protects all users’ passwords and data with AES-256 encryption, which was the first publicly accessible and open cipher approved by the National Security Agency (NSA) to protect top-secret government data. If the guys who watch over our nuclear arsenal and other state secrets approve, you should too.
Dashlane also uses ARGON2, the most powerful and up-to-date cryptography advancements. They’re constantly seeking out and repairing vulnerabilities, and innovating new protection plans faster than wannabe data thieves can create new digital worms, viruses, or other compromising software. The war between hackers and safety experts is never ending, and Dashlane can help you stay on the winning side.
How ahead of the game is Dashlane? It was the first password management tool to deliver passkey support, for one. And as more and more online businesses join Microsoft, Best Buy, eBay, PayPal, and others in supporting passkeys — Apple’s new iOS release coming this fall will also support them — your data will gain yet another layer of protection.
How Expensive Is Dashlane?
Dashlane is affordable, even on a student budget. The basic version is free and offers basic password management for one device. It includes unlimited password storage and secure sharing, and if you divert a few takeout cold brews a month you can bump yourself up to one of these levels of Dashlane:
- The Advanced Plan ($2.75 per month when billed annually) adds unlimited devices and Dashlane’s outstanding Dark Web Monitoring features, which scans 20 billion records on the dark web and alerts you if any of your information appears there. In that event, Dashlane also provides simple steps to help fix the problem and protect your data.
- The Premium Plan ($4.99 per month when billed annually), Dashlane’s most popular plan, gives you everything in Free and Advanced, plus a best-in-class VPN for WiFi protection.
- The Friends & Family plan ($7.49 per month when billed annually) has all the features of the Premium plan for up to 10 individual accounts, managed under one affordable plan.