It's all a question of your threat model. The biggest threats I see for most users are:
1. Password reuse, where a relatively unimportant account (shopping site) getting cracked gives the attacker the same password you used for a critical account (email).
2. Phishing, where you enter your password on a fake login page.
3. Lost device, where someone finding it can easily impersonate you on any site you're logged into.
A password manager handles (1), and if it auto-fills reliably on websites (as Chrome's does) that handles (2) as well. For (3) you want disk encryption, which is now standard on phones and is an easy option on laptops as well.
After these, my next concern would be compromise of the cloud-based password backups. Here is where your parent's comment on Google's security is relevant: Google (disclosure: I used to work there) has an excellent security team and there are few companies I would trust more to keep cloud vaults secure.
The attacks your links are talking about start by assuming someone has full access to your computer. While putting some bumps in their way at this point is nice, I guess, there's nothing stopping them from keylogging their way past any password manager you choose.
