On this episode of The Vergecast, we figure out passkeys once and for all.

Passkeys: how do they work? No, like, seriously. It’s clear that the industry is increasingly betting on passkeys as a replacement for passwords, a way to use the internet that is both more secure and more user-friendly. But for all that upside, it’s not always clear how we, the normal human users, are supposed to use passkeys. You’re telling me it’s just a thing… that lives on my phone? What if I lose my phone? What if you steal my phone?

  • @johannesvanderwhalesEnglish
    4•9 months ago

    It’s definitely more work than just buying the service from someone that has a ready made app. I don’t think it’s a thing I would recommend to, for example, my parents. I know xc has some sort of form fill thing but it’s not nearly as nice as the browser plug-ins made by the various password manager vendors.

    • @[email protected]English
      2•9 months ago

      There’s a Firefox plugin that provides that functionality. As for getting my parents on board, any attempt to get my mil onboard with a password manager has been futile, actually using it seems to be the biggest barrier to adoption in my anecdotal experience

      • @johannesvanderwhalesEnglish
        1•9 months ago

        I’m just saying, the user needs to set up Keepass (on multiple ecosystems), find a solution to sharing their database across multiple devices (and note that sites like Dropbox or Google Drive are blocked on a lot of people’s work computers), find a tool for filling those passwords in their web browser, potentially find different solutions for things like secure notes or syncing passkeys, and then maintain all of those things separately. Or they can pay a monthly fee and just have one integrated solution. A lot of people are gonna choose the latter.