Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Security keys
Raised as a usability problem by 17 people on Hacker News over 8 years (2017–2024), in 14 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Backup security key requires repeated bank trips and re-registering everywhereUnreviewed
20172026- Backup key must be kept in a safe, making routine logins impractical2023-04-26
- Must register multiple physical keys on each account, and keys can't be backed up2023-04-24
- Backup security key requires repeated bank trips and re-registering on every account2022-05-05
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 18 complaints
- Users can't register new keys once limited key slots are full, with no clear path to resolve it2024-12-26
- Backup key must be kept in a safe, making routine logins impractical2023-04-26
- Must register multiple physical keys on each account, and keys can't be backed up2023-04-24
- Must manually remember and enroll every key at every site, which is tedious and easy to forget2023-02-22
- Physical keys are annoying to carry, hard to back up, and hard to recover when lost2023-01-24
- Security keys are not yet usable enough for average people2022-12-10
- Backup security key requires repeated bank trips and re-registering on every account2022-05-05
- Hard to track which services have which keys and keep lists current2022-05-05
- Frequent signing errors and no prompt to press the security key2021-05-19
- Sites skip the key after 'remember this device', leaving the key unused for long periods2021-04-17
- Hard to build habit of using keys; sites default to remembering logins forever2021-02-13
- Enrolling a backup key means a trip to retrieve it, and forgetting which sites need it2020-01-06
- Many services won't let you register multiple keys, so lost or stolen keys are hard to handle2019-05-28
- Using security keys is a pain, so non-technical people won't adopt them2019-05-28
- Confusing setup and the key often doesn't work on mobile2018-08-10
- Server-side U2F integration was too complicated and documentation was hard to find2018-08-10
- Security key login keeps rejecting codes with an unclear error message2017-01-26
- Losing the key means resetting every service it protects through alternate routes2017-01-26