Google and Apple Want You to Log In With Passkeys. Here’s What That Means.
The biggest tech companies want you to ditch passwords for passkeys. You’re probably wondering: What even is a passkey? And do I have to use it? It’s a new type of login that uses cryptographic magic on your phone or laptop. Passkeys are safer than typing “password123," and more convenient, since all you do is scan your face or fingerprint, or click a button.
After decades of basic passwords, this may sound intimidating, but the passkey era has arrived. More and more sites and apps will start pushing you to set them up. Earlier this month, Google started to make passkey logins default.
You may have already seen a prompt to “Create a passkey" after signing in to Gmail or YouTube. (If not, you soon will.) On Apple devices, if you’re running the latest software, you’ll see a new passkey option for logging into websites with your Apple ID. This past week, Amazon quietly enabled a passkey option for web logins.
What’s great is that third-party password managers from Dashlane, 1Password and others now support passkeys on mobile devices as well as desktop browsers. I’ve long encouraged people to use these managers, and have myself for over a decade. The new passkey availability and compatibility mean it’s a good time to set up a few.
Passwords—and all their failings—will be here for a while, but the long-term goal is to eliminate them in favor of more secure logins. What is a passkey? Using a passkey is like unlocking a door. There’s a bit of software code that lives on your device (the key), and another bit of code provided by the website (the keyhole).
Each website has a keyhole that only your passkey can unlock. Passkeys are easier to use because: • You don’t have to remember or type in complicated passwords. • Passkeys can
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