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| Google officially supports passwords in the latest version of Chrome |
Yesterday, Thursday, Google announced the official rollout of Passkeys technology for the latest version of its Chrome browser, after its inclusion in the Canary Browser beta in mid-October.
The move is part of the US tech giant's efforts to fix security holes affecting encryption, which has been a device's first line of defense for years but lacks the required level of security.
Because passwords are vulnerable to phishing and data leakage, Google said in a blog post that it knew about these issues early on and introduced additional lines of defense years ago, such as two-step verification and Google Password Manager.
According to Google, to deal with these security threats more easily and comfortably, we need to move to passwordless authentication, and this is where keys come into play.
The company believes that keys are a more secure alternative to phishing passwords and authentication factors because they cannot be reused, are not exposed in the event of a data breach, and protect users from phishing attacks. Passwords complies with industry standards, works across different operating systems and browsers, and works with websites and apps.
Keys can be used to sign in to websites and apps that support them. It follows a familiar UX pattern, similar to "autocomplete saved passwords", which requires the user to confirm a key on the device using an authentication factor (such as a pattern or fingerprint) used to lock the screen.
With the latest version of Chrome, the key works on Windows 11, macOS, and Android. Finally, the user's key is synced securely via Google's password manager, and in a future version of Android this will be possible with any other password manager that supports Chrome keys.
Once passwords are stored on the device, they are synced to the user's phone and computer via the cloud to help users protect themselves if they lose their device.
In addition, users can use a key stored on their phone to scan a QR code using the phone's camera to log into apps and websites on nearby devices.