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I avoid symbols in passwords because they may be difficult to type, especially on keyboard layouts or devices I'm not familiar with.

Also, more importantly, I don't often trust all software developers. Once I used passwords containing spaces. Some services later changed their authentication methods so that they stripped blank spaces from passwords. This made me unable to login.

My fear is that similar things may happen with other symbols too (especially if we consider non-ASCII symbols).

After all, if you think about numbers, using symbols is not much different from adding a few characters to your alphanumeric password:

• 100 symbols (all ASCII printable characters), length 8: 100⁸ combinations;
• 62 symbols (ASCII letters and digits), length 9: 62⁹ combinations, greater than 100⁸.

Using more symbols helps, but increasing length is much better (k^x grows faster than x^k).

I avoid symbols in passwords because they may be difficult to type, especially on keyboard layouts or devices I'm not familiar with.

Also, more importantly, I don't often trust all software developers. Once I used passwords containing spaces. Some services later changed their authentication methods so that they stripped blank spaces from passwords. This made me unable to login.

My fear is that similar things may happen with other symbols too, especially if we consider non-ASCII symbols. By the way, the fact that your customer services are discouraging the use of special symbols is a strong indication of the fact that they shouldn't be trusted and they may do weird things (either now or in the future).

After all, if you think about numbers, using symbols is not much different from adding a few characters to your alphanumeric password:

• 100 symbols (all ASCII printable characters), length 8: 100⁸ combinations;
• 62 symbols (ASCII letters and digits), length 9: 62⁹ combinations, greater than 100⁸.

Using more symbols helps, but increasing length is much better (k^x grows faster than x^k).

I avoid symbols in passwords because they may be difficult to type, especially on keyboard layouts or devices I'm not familiar with.

Also, I don't often trust all software developers. Once I used passwords containing spaces. Some services later changed their authentication methods so that they stripped blank spaces from passwords. This made me unable to login.

My fear is that similar things may happen with other symbols too (especially if we consider non-ASCII symbols).

After all, if you think about numbers, using symbols is not much different from adding a few characters to your alphanumeric password:

• 100 symbols (all ASCII printable characters), length 8: 100⁸ combinations;
• 62 symbols (ASCII letters and digits), length 9: 62⁹ combinations, greater than 100⁸.

Using more symbols helps, but increasing length is much better (k^x grows faster than x^k).

I avoid symbols in passwords because they may be difficult to type, especially on keyboard layouts or devices I'm not familiar with.

Also, more importantly, I don't often trust all software developers. Once I used passwords containing spaces. Some services later changed their authentication methods so that they stripped blank spaces from passwords. This made me unable to login.

My fear is that similar things may happen with other symbols too (especially if we consider non-ASCII symbols).

After all, if you think about numbers, using symbols is not much different from adding a few characters to your alphanumeric password:

• 100 symbols (all ASCII printable characters), length 8: 100⁸ combinations;
• 62 symbols (ASCII letters and digits), length 9: 62⁹ combinations, greater than 100⁸.

Using more symbols helps, but increasing length is much better (k^x grows faster than x^k).

I avoid symbols in passwords because they may be difficult to type, especially on keyboard layouts or devices I'm not familiar with.

Also, I don't often trust all software developers. Once I used passwords containing spaces. Some services later changed their authentication methods so that they stripped blank spaces from passwords. This made me unable to login.

After all, if you think about numbers, using symbols is not much different from adding a few characters to your alphanumeric password:

• 100 symbols (all ASCII printable characters), length 8: 100⁸ combinations;
• 62 symbols (ASCII letters and digits), length 9: 62⁹ combinations, greater than 100⁸.

I avoid symbols in passwords because they may be difficult to type, especially on keyboard layouts or devices I'm not familiar with.

Also, I don't often trust all software developers. Once I used passwords containing spaces. Some services later changed their authentication methods so that they stripped blank spaces from passwords. This made me unable to login.

My fear is that similar things may happen with other symbols too (especially if we consider non-ASCII symbols).

After all, if you think about numbers, using symbols is not much different from adding a few characters to your alphanumeric password:

• 100 symbols (all ASCII printable characters), length 8: 100⁸ combinations;
• 62 symbols (ASCII letters and digits), length 9: 62⁹ combinations, greater than 100⁸.

Using more symbols helps, but increasing length is much better (k^x grows faster than x^k).