Another reason to end passwords as a method of authentication is the poor usability of strong passwords on mobile devices.

  1. Typing a strong password like xry7s6Dx26Pz is nearly impossible on a mobile keyboard, particularly since for some dumb reason I can’t even see it when I type.
  2. I can’t use a password agent like LastPass effectively on iOS because there’s no way for it to plug in to Mobile Safari. I’m stuck awkwardly copy and pasting passwords between the LastPass app and Safari, having to type my master password every time. LastPass does have its own baked-in browser but that’s far too limited on iOS.
  3. Trying to log in to other apps pretty much requires copy-and-paste of the password, since there’s nothing like a pluggable authentication framework.

Sorry if this is stating the obvious, but the lack of usability of strong passwords on my iPhone and iPad is a big part of why I don’t log into sites on mobile devices.

techbad
  2013-09-10 15:24 Z