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by jeffbarg 1774 days ago
It's shocking to me that authentication the way WhatsApp / Discord do it is not a) commonplace and b) productized for developers. This feels like an obvious first step solution IMO - best of luck with the launch.

Edit: having the standalone Keyri app work for apps that don't have a dedicated mobile app of their own feels like it would drastically increase the market size here. Auth0 / Cognito are woefully unequipped for most web app's authentication needs, so there's still a huge opportunity there.

1 comments

Thanks. Yes, the concept is to productize the WhatsApp/Discord UX. Keyri differs from them on how it works behind the scenes for increased security and ease of integration. BTW - QR login is much more prevalent in China. Just about every major and minor tech platform there has QR login. I see that as a case of leapfrogging, and I hope we can accelerate its adoption in the West and other regions.

Agreed that the standalone Keyri app has its place in our longer term strategy, especially when it comes to workforce SSO applications. We're currently targeting the consumer-facing web, and the roadblock we've heard from companies we've spoken to there is that it's easier for them to ask their users to "download the Google Authenticator app" or "download the Duo app" than it is to "download the Keyri app". It's a matter of our fledgling legitimacy at this point, though we hope to get to a point where users can accept and prefer the Keyri app (because the UX and security really are better than Google Authenticator / TOTP apps)

Super interesting re: China. Curious if there are open source projects/libraries they build on or if most of that is built internally.
I don't have much inside info, but the contents of the QR codes on Alibaba, JD.com, and others differ substantially, so I suspect each is building their systems in-house, though in China, I would think there's more of an established playbook for building them given its prevalence. I haven't run across a dedicated library/package for this.

In the West, WhatsApp and Discord have massively different schemes for QR login.