Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Authenticator apps
Raised as a usability problem by 9 people on Hacker News over 7 years (2018–2024), in 9 threads.
People raised many different problems with Authenticator apps, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 9 complaints
- No automatic backup, and codes can't be shown on screen when needed, making recovery hard2024-09-02
- Users forget to port authenticator keys and re-setup takes days, often needing zoom verification2024-04-15
- Identically named apps with generic icons are hard to tell apart in the app list2024-01-03
- Older relatives struggle to navigate the app and set up authenticator apps for security2023-07-29
- Authenticator apps share identical names and generic icons, so users can't tell which one to open2022-10-18
- Setup takes many steps, and codes expire quickly and get confused2022-03-30
- Code copying between apps is not discoverable, so people memorize and type codes instead2021-04-08
- Must re-add every account's code manually on a new phone, despite support saying they'd transfer2019-07-12
- Must leave current task, open app, copy code, and paste it back2018-03-05