Google Is Testing Password-Free Logins

Passwords are a pain, and two-factor authentication is even more of a pain. But to keep your online accounts secure, you have to deal with it. Unless companies figure out some way to authenticate you, without it being such a hassle. It looks like Google is doing just that with one of its latest experiments. Google recently confirmed reports that it's testing a new password-free login method. Instead of entering an email and a password to login, users only have to type in their email. Then, they are sent a notification to their smartphone. All they have to do is respond "yes" in order to confirm that they actually do want to login to their account. If you always have your phone on you, this seems way more convenient than having to type out a long, secure, poetic password (although you can choose to still enter it, as an extra security precaution). If you lose your phone, hopefully Touch ID and your phone passcode will keep your data secure, but you'll want to rescind Google's access to that phone from another device. A small number of Google users have been invited to test it out thus far, on both iOS and Android. We have no idea if this login method will end up expanding beyond this small testing group, but we hope it does. Passwords are notoriously awful at keeping your information secure, and smartphone authentication makes a lot of sense.