Google announced today that you can use the fingerprint sensor to sign in to some of its services when you’re using Chrome for Android. The company said this functionality is available for all Pixel users today, and will be rolling out to all using Android 7 or above in coming days.
At the moment, you can go to passwords.google.com and test out this feature to view and edit your passwords. The company said it’ll soon enable more Google and Google cloud services that allow this authentication method.
The search giant said this feature is built by using FIDO2 standards, W3C WebAuthn, and FIDO CTAP. That makes it more secure than using native Android biometric APIs. Google said by using FIDO2, it can use the same authentication method both on the web and in the app.
Using this method, you can avoid putting in a password every time you need to login to some service and escape ‘phishing’ attacks. As FIDO2 remembers credentials for a specific device, authentication takes place locally on your device – minimizing the risk of getting hacked.
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