Me being a trusting sod (NOT) don't trust people that offer this type of checking, do I trust that they don't harvest any data, no. I told you I was a trusting sod and Microsoft has so much form in trustworthy computing NOT, that I would be less likely to use their checker.
I much prefer if someone gives the theory behind what makes a strong password and then the user can heed the advice, but to subsequently test that password on what is a publicly available site for me invalidates that particular password.
Meh, I just wanted to share it with people. There are a lot of people with some worthless passwords, and they wouldn't know it if they used something like that.
I agree that a strong password "theory" would suffice, but I explain to my users what a, "complex password" is, and why it's required on all of my networks, but it seems like they try 8 times to pick a password that meets the requirements, and they still don't get it. Some people just need this sort of thing, because they don't listen or understand or care.
Of course, if you use some versions of linux, it will check how strong your password is when you first enter it during setup, many websites will do it too.
Say what you want, but it's good to know that if your password is "pass1234" it's not very strong, but if it's "bCEV23&^dk21z" then it's not very likely that it will be guessed / or hacked using an automated program.
I pretty much put this out there for well, "dullards" that don't know any better about why they need a strong password or if they have one (by, "dullard" I mean users who do things such as putting their password on a sticky note, and sticking it on their monitor for all to see).
The rest of us know how to pick a strong password, and know not to put it on a sticky note on our monitor, nor do we need to test it to find out. So, don't use it if you don't need it.