The only thing that keeps users' valuable information from phishers is passwords. However, these days, coming up with a good one is difficult and lengthy and is almost always impossible to keep in mind. To avoid getting locked out, people tend to reuse their old passwords or utilize easy-to-remember ones, and this is true in one in every seven people according to Kaspersky.
To end this misery and list of "Forget password?" requests, Google has started to roll out testing of a new log-in system. Good news is passwords will no longer be required -- just responding and tapping "Yes" to a notification sent on smartphone devices will already allow access to Google accounts such as Gmail and YouTube.
"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," a representative from Google said. However, when Google suspects something fishy on your current log-in process, it may still require you your password or additional questions as an additional precaution. In case the phone was stolen or got lost, the regular password can be used for signing in and inactivating the lost phone from messing up emails or important documents.
This new feature was first reported by Rohit Paul in Reddit and was confirmed by Android Police. He said that an invitation email was sent asking him to join the testing and was given authorization to test the new feature in his smartphone.
The participants belong to the "Sign-In Experiments at Google" and can be found on the Google groups. Although the link can be publicly seen, a direct invitation is needed to actually participate.
This initiative is similar to "Account Key," a password-protection program launched by Yahoo, which sends a push notification that then reroutes to an app where users can authenticate their log-in.
