Google Authenticator gets its first update in years | Hacker News Reader

Google Authenticator gets its first update in years

androidpolice.com

18 pointsAdmiralAsshat11 comments

Really happy to see this. I once wrongfully (and stupidly) assumed that my authenticator codes would be saved by Android backup, and lost all of them. I was able to regain access to almost everything, but there's one account I'm now locked out of forever.

It now allows backup which is a really nice feature to avoid the my phone broke and now I'm locked out problem.

Yes. If only it hadn't taken them so many years that the most Android users have switched to other services by now.

I believe I moved to Authy in...2015, maybe? Between migrating phones and trying to juggle the tablet I had on the side (as a backup), it was just too much of a pain to use Authenticator anymore.

Around a month too late for me. I discovered the open source FreeOTP+ which had this feature when I needed it.

Funny enough I just picked up Authy a few months ago and it's leagues better than Google Authenticator. Losing my data once in Authenticator was enough pain to make a switch.

Remember that time in 2012 when Google replaced the authenticator app with a new one and never really offered an explanation? (afaik?) https://blog.lastpass.com/2012/03/new-google-releases-authen...

Hopefully there wasn't anything more nefarious there.

Does anybody know if there is any improvement in the OTP generation algorithms?

I like to have all of my clocks set 10 minutes ahead and Google Authenticator had always been failing generating correct codes. I mean, it's just 10 minutes. IMHO, The OTP generation algorithm should not be that dependent on time.

Then I abandoned it just like many other people.

I think that has more to do with timeouts than the OTP generation itself. Like the RSA tokens which allow use of the passcodes slightly before or after the active time range (and can use discrepancies to re-sync the clock) but will not accept an older passcode or one not generated yet. I doubt there's much of an incentive for them to handle clocks that far off, or anything more than normal locale issues for that matter.

Too late.

Which reminds me of another tool I left years ago. Google Keep. Are there any recent updates there, apart from the dark theme?

What do you use instead of Google Keep?

I use Trello mostly, and keep my notes in Apple Notes.

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