And if you lose any of your 2FA configured devices, you still would have a backup device to generate 2FA codes on. You no longer need a smartphone to authenticate yourself while using your computer. Such solutions will also help address both the issues we discussed above.
Also, if you somehow lose access to that smartphone, the process to restore access could be complex one sometimes even resulting in a temporary lockout.īut in this article, we’ll explore a few workarounds to use Google Authenticator directly on the computer. It implements the Time-Based One-Time Password Algorithm ( TOTP) and HMAC-based One-time Password Algorithm ( HOTP) to generate unique 6-Digit authentication codes for each of the linked accounts, and doesn’t require Internet access to work.Įven though Two-Factor-Authentication is a more secure option, it could sometimes feel a little inconvenient to open up a smartphone app every time you want to login to a specific online account or service, on your computer. The official Google Authenticator app is only available on iOS and Android platforms, with certain third party alternatives available for BlackBerry and Windows Phones. Google has its own version of two-factor authentication service, which is nowadays supported by various third party online services.
