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by sontek 1929 days ago
"Passwords are dying"

NOPE. Magic Links are dieing. This is probably the 20th time I've seen a start-up posting proudly about how they chose magic links over standard auth and I don't think any of them have stuck.

It is a TERRIBLE user experience.

* We have a tab open on your site, it tells us to go to our e-mail to get a link, and then that opens up a different tab.

* Or we only check that address on phone which means we can't easily login on desktop unless we also have that e-mail address logged in on desktop as well.

* It removes our ability to use password managers.

* Doesn't allow us to have multiple e-mail addresses easily. Now I have to remember what e-mail address I used for your service to go find the magic link.

STOP doing it. Give people two-factor authentication. Give people options if you want and see if anyone opts into magic links.

All that being said... It looks like this service does require password for sign-up and login right now unless you use google auth? Not sure how this blog post relates to the actual company. Maybe its something they are thinking about doing?

2 comments

Totally agree. I advise all of my clients away from "password less" because it's a terrible UX.

I recently moved all of my email forwarding away from ImprovMX and a big reason was the obnoxious passwordless system. There are a few others I've bailed on as well for the same reason.

"It looks like this service does require password for sign-up and login right now unless you use google auth?"

We have implemented magic link in our new product, also as a way to trying out the tech and understanding user feedback. Appreciate your comments and a lot of great feedback from the discussion on this post in general.