What is a password? Easily explained

With a password you protect your user account online or on your computer, smartphone or tablet. In this article we explain to you what a password is in an easy and understandable way.

Password - that's behind the difficult code

You use user accounts on the Internet and on the computer and have to set a password for them:

• The password then allows you to access your user account in combination with your user name. You can either choose the username or it is your email address. You can almost always determine the password yourself.
• Usually a password must consist of at least eight characters. Sometimes special characters, numbers and capital letters have to be used. The password is a secret password with which you can verify yourself and get access to your data. For example, you can shop on Amazon after entering the password.
• The combination of numbers, special characters and lower and upper case letters makes your password more secure.
• You can also protect your user account on a PC (Windows) or Mac with a password so that no one else can access it.
• On a smartphone or tablet, the password is often replaced by a PIN (a four-digit number sequence) or a swipe gesture.