It is confirmed folks; Google is indeed testing a new way of signing into your Google account without typing in the password. Those who have been invited, and the number is limited, log in by responding to a notification that is sent to their respective smartphone. The idea is somewhat similar to the Yahoo’s ‘Account Key’.
Why do this? Well, while some of us take passwords seriously and make sure they are hard to crack, others really don’t pay much attention to it thus making passwords being the weakest part of the link when it comes to securing users’ accounts. Two-step authentication is being used but it is mostly considered a hassle and a delay in logging in to your account. On the other hand, this new option speeds things up; type your email and hit enter, you get a notification on smartphone confirming if it is indeed you trying to login via some other device and all you need to do is to tap ‘yes’ and you’re in. The feature would be really handy to those who always keep their smartphone with them and those who have complicated passwords that might prove to be a burden when it comes to remembering them and typing them again and again.
The first report of the test surfaced when the Reddit user Rohit Paul mentioned it and it was then reported online by other sources as well. As per Paul, an email invitation was sent to him asking if he wanted to a join test group that was being given the access to this new technology. The group is called ‘Sign-In Experiments at Google’ and although it is public, you can’t view or participate without receiving a direct invitation. According to a Google’ spokesperson, “We’ve invited a small group of users to help test a new way to sign-in to their Google accounts, no password required. ‘Pizza’, ‘password’ and ‘123456’—your days are numbered.”
The participants have been told that they can also use their passwords to sign in as well if they wish to do so. Google further states that it might ask for the password of the users as an additional security measure if it notices something unusual about the login attempt. In case your smartphone is lost or stolen, the screen lock will protect your private data and you can sign in to your account by typing in your password and then removing the account access from the device that was stolen/lost.
Google further told the testers that they can turn this feature off whenever then want and can also leave the trial group if they wish to. Google has yet not commented on when it will be expanding the service to more people. The good thing is that this feature works on both iOS and Android as of now.