Google Makes It Much Easier to Ditch Your Passwords by Default

Because passkeys are 'phishing resistant'

By
Jerri Ledford
Jerri Ledford
Jerri Ledford
Senior News Editor, Fact Checker
  • Western Kentucky University
  • Gulf Coast Community College
Jerri L. Ledford has been writing, editing, and fact-checking tech stories since 1994. Her work has appeared in Computerworld, PC Magazine, Information Today, and many others.
lifewire's editorial guidelines
Published on October 10, 2023 02:30PM EDT

Passwords have gotten increasingly more complicated as tech makes them easier to break, but passkeys rely on biometrics, which means they're more secure.

Soon you won't need to remember a bunch of long, complicated passwords for every service or app you sign into.

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and as part of that, Google is making passkeys the default log-in option for personal Google Accounts. When you log into your Google account, you'll be prompted to create and use a passkey for future log-ins.

Someone looking at their Google passkeys on an iPhone.
Google Passkeys.

Unsplash / Mockup Photos

A passkey can be a fingerprint, face scan, or pin number that you use in place of a password. According to Google's blog post announcing the change, "they are 40% faster than passwords — and rely on a type of cryptography that makes them more secure."

Despite being the default option, passkeys are still only an option. You can enable them for all services by selecting 'Skip password when possible' in your Google account, but you can also disable them with the same option if you prefer not to use passkeys.

Passkeys are available for all Google apps, including Gmail, YouTube, Search, and Maps, but they're also available from other developers. For example, Google points out that Uber and eBay have recently enabled passkeys, and notes that WhatsApp should get passkeys in the near future.

Was this page helpful?