[mffap]

If you'd take a passwordless login with FIDO2 (now promoted "Passkeys" by Apple and Google) it would mainly require to use FaceID / Windows Hello / Fingerprint / PIN ... or whatever your devices deem necessary. Could be used on any and cross-device.

[kevincox]

This may be a good future. But it seems like this isn't available to most people on most browsers yes. Especially if you want to sync across ecosystems.

I like how tangible passwords are. Even with a password manager I can write them on a piece of paper, store then in a vault and enter them into a new computer. My grandmother understands this process.

The key-based systems are basically magic. Magic that works great as long as you are inside the defined parameters on supported devices. I think it will be years after the "first baked release" before we see relatively user friendly manual backup and restore. Something this is second nature in most password managers.

[mffap]

I'm glad that your grandmother uses a password manager. We actually had a lot of feedback from teens and children and the concept of MFA/2FA seems to be hard to understand for less technical people. We were surprised by the actual understanding after some user research.

Yes, availability on all browsers and devices is not yet up to 100%. I hope to see a fast adoption, but agree that it could actually take some time. I use Passkeys on a daily basis for the last ~1.5 years wherever possible and won't go back anytime soon :)

[withinboredom]

Chrome supports a webauthn solution built-in if you don't have windows/platform authentication support. I think Firefox does too, and probably even Safari on really old machines. If you are targeting semi-modern browsers and devices made in the last 5-10 years, you should be fine.

[mffap]

Yes. To my knowledge WebAuthN works great on Chrome, Safari, Firefox (most times) on MacOS/iOS and Windows devices. Linux is still an issue unfortunately as it seems.

[aaaaaaaaata]

Opposite of what I'd expect.