Chrome and Firefox will support a new standard for password-free logins
Web browsers are building a new way for you to log in, announced today by the W3C and FIDO Alliance standards bodies. Called WebAuthn, the new open standard is currently supported in the latest version of Firefox, and will be supported in upcoming versions of Chrome and Edge slated for release in the next few months.
WebAuthn has been working its way toward W3C approval for nearly two years, but today marks the first major announcement of browser support. Apple has not commented on Safari support for WebAuthn, although the company is part of the working group that developed the standard.
Today’s announcement the latest step in a years-long effort to move users away from passwords and toward more secure login methods like biometrics and USB tokens. The system is already in place on major services like Google and Facebook, where you can log in using a Yubikey token built to the FIDO standard.
I’m beginning to hate passwords, even with password managers. I look forward to the day in which authentication works just like magic (securely, of course). This sounds like a good step.
Originally published at One-Tech Mind.
