Two-step authentication is a feature that has become essential for every internet user, adding an additional layer of security to accounts and preventing the leak of credentials from resulting in compromise. Many people, however, consider this necessary extra step a nuisance, which led Google to develop a system for automatically copying codes received by message, which may soon also reach the desktop versions of Chrome.
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The feature reduces the number of steps required to login by automatically reading the SMS received. When the system identifies a numeric code linked to two-step authentication, it is automatically copied and pasted on the website asking for it, speeding up the process and preventing the user from having to leave the application, access another one and then return. On Android, it already works, and iOS also has a similar system.
Now, the idea is that it also works between cell phones and computers. At least, this is what indicates the appearance of the feature in a preliminary version of the Chrome browser, the Canary. Despite having the activation button, the novelty still does not work effectively, but according to Google, it will work in order to integrate smartphones with Android and computers with Windows, Linux, macOS and Chrome OS.
The most basic idea is that the Google account will be used to synchronize the contents of the clipboard between the smartphone and the other connected devices – something that also explains why the feature should not work, too, on iOS phones. In addition, there are doubts about data sharing and eventual automatic pasting of information copied from a shared clipboard.
These are questions to which Google has not responded since, as always, the company does not comment on resources under development. You can't imagine, either, when, or if, the novelty will show up, since, as said, it is not working yet, but it may gain new updates in later versions of Canary, before reaching Chrome.