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Google will soon let you sign into websites on your phone with a fingerprint

Passwords suck so we’re always keen on ways to ditch long, hard to forget combinations of letters and numbers.

Google seems to agree with us and is giving users a new way to sign into websites using the fingerprint scanner on their smartphone or the screen lock password.

This is made possible by Android’s FIDO2 certification. FIDO2 gives Android devices the perk of letting users log into websites securely using a fingerprint or a FIDO-certified camera.

Google stresses the fact that your fingerprint is never sent to its servers and instead “cryptographic proof” that you have scanned your digit is sent.

To use this functionality you will need an Android smartphone running Android 7 or later and have your Google Account tied to said Android smartphone.

From there open Chrome on the handset and head to passwords.google.com. Once in that site choose a website to manage its password.

Follow the instructions to authenticate yourself and you’re done.

What strikes us as odd is why Google is adding this feature. For one, Android users have a bevy of Google apps at their disposal so the need to log into Gmail via Chrome seems a bit long in the tooth when there is a Gmail app.

That having been said, being able to ditch passwords for a more elegant and equally (if not more) secure solution is okay with us.

Google will be adding this functionality to more of its services in the future, at time of writing all you can access is the Password Manager within Chrome.

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