Google Authenticator’s first update in a year arrived at the end of May, hiding your 2FA codes until you clicked to disclose them. Google has taken a turn away from that feature in an upgrade to Authenticator this week.
The Click to reveal PIN function has been removed in Google Authenticator version 5.20R4 so that, upon starting the app, you are presented with a list of all the two-factor authentication codes.
Google’s click to disclose feature was probably an attempt to increase security by making it more difficult for someone who are physically close to you to glance at your phone’s screen and grab something. However, codes already change every 30 seconds, so it’s unclear how successful of a measure it actually was. By just displaying the code you need, this feature had an unforeseen benefit of helping you focus.
The iOS app, which can ask for Face/Touch ID authentication before displaying codes and would be a wonderful feature to have on Android for shared device use situations, never received this upgrade.
Google has modified Authenticators to reflect the addition of device encryption to the storing of secret values in the interim. This most recent version of Google Authenticator was widely released earlier this week with no additional changes to the program.
FTC: We use income-generating auto-affiliate links. MORE INFORMATION ABOUT GOOGLE AUTHENTICATOR. More.
Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:
