Jerry,
My opinion is, running two web browsers would certainly have it's benefits, but if your the only one on the machine, you can adjust your browser to warn you if your about to do anything stupid, and even block outside attempts. Or better yet...know what to look for and avoid.
The only thing that would make me skeptical about using two browsers for security is that they are both on the same machine. If they get in, they arent going to care which browser your using or how secure it is, especially if they got in via an email attachment with links.
Yeah they might not get a lot of your passwords if said browser isn't saving them, but why not just set the browser to not save any of them?
I personally use the machine I'm typing this on for everything, from banking, working on the server, editing clients sites from the server, ftp'ing, email, etc.
But with that said, I know where this computer goes and what it does every minute of the day, and when I'm not on it, it's locked up.
I have three other machines in the house that the kids use, which I monitor the systems on very close and still wouldnt think of checking my bank account balance on because I'm not standing over them every second they are on them.
As far as password go. Yes the more difficult a password is to remember or the less sense it makes, the harder it is to crack.
What a lot of people dont realize, and I've mentioned this before is hackers use scripts that literally generate words based off of dictionary words at an unbelievable pace in attempt to guess your password. So in theory a password of coyote12 is about as vulnerable as you can get.
There's a chart
HERE that lists the amount of time it would theoretically take to crack a password based on it combination of letters and or numbers, and it's relevance with a dictionary word.
Basically a password made up of four letters can be cracked in 13 minutes or less.
How?
Have you ever been to a site that has a log in panel like the forums here and the minute the page loads, the cursor is flashing in the user name box?
Microsoft did that to be user friendly, problem is hackers are users too.
Hackers love that because they dont have to be present to execute the password guessing script. The cursor is where it needs to be and the script executes itself randomly generating thousands of usernames and password per minute until it makes a match, at which time it alerts the user and he comes and does what ever it was he was looking to do after he got access.
There are scripts available to prevent the cursor from automatically being placed in the login box upon page load, but they arent real common yet.
All in all ...passwords with alphanumeric characters and a minimum of 10 of them for high security is the best way to go.
