by Dan Moren
Google adds passkeys for accounts
Google’s next step into a passwordless future is here with the announcement that passkeys — a new cryptographic keys solution that requires a preauthenticated device — are coming to Google accounts on all major platforms. Starting today, Google users can switch to passkeys and ditch their passwords and two-step verification codes entirely when signing in.
I set this up immediately, and it works pretty well, although when I tried logging into my Google account via a private browser tab, it still made me go through the standard password and two-factor verification step. But logging out in my main browser and logging back in with a passkey was a breeze.
There’s no doubt for me that the entire technology industry will be shifting to passkeys over the next few years—the advantages are huge for both users and services—but it’s still likely to be a very slow transition, and there will no doubt be holdouts and laggards.
My biggest question remains how to deal with shared accounts. Unlike passwords, passkeys can’t easily be shard with others, which is more secure but also way less convenient. Third-party apps might offer a way to fill in this gap, but it definitely feels like a first-party problem; you can’t just fall back to copying and pasting, so there needs to be an easy way to share these universally.
Still, I’m primed and ready for our passkey future. Death to the password!