I began utilizing Authy to handle my 2FA tokens nicely over a half decade in the past; I used Google Authenticator beforehand, however as I used to be beginning to swap gadgets frequently, I wanted an answer that works throughout a number of gadgets, iOS, and Home windows. To its credit score, Authy provided every thing I wanted of a 2FA shopper, so I moved all of my tokens to the service, and it has been hassle-free — till now.
Authy shops 2FA tokens related together with your account on its servers, and you may have to arrange a backup password to decrypt accounts when transferring to a brand new gadget. The backup password is not saved anyplace, and whereas there have been just a few glitches previously when the password wasn’t acknowledged on a brand new gadget, resetting it on the older gadget and keying within the new one at all times did the trick.
However that dynamic modified earlier this week. I used to be switching away from the Pixel 8 Professional to Vivo’s X100 Extremely, and once I tried to enter the backup password in Authy, it stated the credentials have been incorrect. So I reset them on the 8 Professional, and entered the small print once more on the X100 Extremely, to no avail. I figured there should be a difficulty with the bundle, so I uninstalled Authy and did a reinstall, however the identical concern remained.
I swap between gadgets each two weeks on common, and logging in to Authy on a brand new cellphone is as routine as backing up photographs whereas configuring a brand new gadget. So I went again to a cellphone I used to be utilizing final month (the POCO F6) and pulled up Authy on that gadget to see if the brand new password would take. Once more, the service stated the password was incorrect, and no quantity of clearing cache/information and reinstalling made a distinction.
I’ve been mulling a swap to a different 2FA service for some time now, however stored placing it off due to the effort concerned. Whereas different 2FA suppliers make it straightforward to switch information, Authy does not have that provision — in that sense, it’s the Evernote of 2FA purchasers. This meant that I needed to manually reconfigure 2FA on all of my accounts to maneuver to a different service.
In terms of selecting an alternate, there are many nice selections. Aegis Authenticator ticks loads of the fitting containers, but it surely does not work for my very own use case as I want one thing that syncs throughout gadgets seamlessly. That is why I switched to 2FAS; the service is free and open supply, has a browser extension that is ultimate on Home windows, and syncs by way of Google Drive, making it extraordinarily straightforward to arrange when transferring to a brand new cellphone.
The very best half is that you just needn’t furnish a cellphone quantity to make use of the service, and if you wish to keep nameless, you needn’t use Drive sync. The one concern in my utilization is that because it depends on Drive, you can’t set it up on iOS — this is similar concern with WhatsApp. That stated, you possibly can simply again up all 2FA tokens to a file, and use that whereas organising 2FAS on an iPhone — that is what I did, and it really works seamlessly.
There’s additionally the truth that 2FAS has a clear design, and also you get a widget on each Android and iOS. It excels at offering time-based one-time passwords to your accounts, and does so with no need you to share any pointless particulars. Mix that with the convenience of use and its means to work throughout gadgets, and it’s now my go-to 2FA advice.