Beginning to prepare for ditching my smartphone and one of the steps is becoming familiar with using my Mac to generate authenticator codes instead of an app on my phone.
Heinz Tschabitscher has a good guide:
https://ladedu.com/how-to-use-safari-as-a-2fa-authenticator-app/
@urlyman why is the lady smelling the giant rock salt light? fwiw i just use 2fa codes i generate/keep in 1password and bitwarden
@patrick_h_lauke I didn’t know about https://support.1password.com/one-time-passwords/?mac in 1P. Thanks.
Are you using bitwarden as a backup of 1P, or for some other scope?
@urlyman 1pwd for work. bitwarden for my private/family use
…But, also in the mix is that some sites are now offering passkeys instead of 2FA-hardened passwords.
@rmondello has a great talk about that: https://hachyderm.io/@rmondello/115508751126880083
…This is good. Passkeys are better. But the transition through this is compounded by my having used 1Password for years.
A case in point.
I’m still using Adobe (yeah I know). I thought I’d use them as a test case of my authentication migration, not least because I have been using their own hand-rolled Authenticator app, and that’s a no-no when I give up my smartphone.
One of the challenges with these monolithic enterprises is that they all want you to use *their* solution…
@urlyman I think I stopped with Photoshop at 7.5. I'm on Pixelmator and DxO Photolab these days. But now Apple's bought Pixelmator so I may be on the move again.
…and so you have to try and peer through the mists of the way their **DRINK ME** labels intersect down the rabbit hole of authentication.
I’d begun my journey into using the Apple Keychain for authentication by saying yes to the prompt of installing the iCloud Passwords extension for Firefox. Seems like a good idea, right?
Except that it takes precedence over the 1Password extension also installed and that fucks with Adobe’s sign-in layer…
…No matter, I disabled the iCloud extension, and figured I should sign in to Adobe using their app while I still have it, and then change my mode of sign in.
And it’s only *then* that I see that Adobe now offers a *passkey* mode of authenticating. And opting into that and generating a key is easy but then I’m asked where do I want to save it. And of course the 1Password extension wants it to be 1Password that saves it.
But this feels messy af to me…
…If I’m entering a world where:
1. many sites (including ones I’ve made) only use passwords
2. but some also bolt on 2FA with SMS
3. but some deploy 2FA via an authenticator app
4. but now some are offering passkeys
I want to have some coherent sense of where to keep all this and I’m not sure that 1Password is it anymore.
If I’m going to have to use the Mac’s Passwords app to address #3, then why not go all in with that app. It is free after all…
…and it’s not like I’m giving up my Mac any time soon. (Sorry Linux fans)
Anyway, this all feels very messy, but I think I’m heading towards the Mac Passwords app being the thing.
If Apple get hacked, or crash, I and millions of others are seriously fked anyway
