Products · Product
YubiKey
Raised as a usability problem by 57 people on Hacker News over 14 years (2013–2026), in 47 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Having to grab the key every time to use it is clunkyUnreviewed
20132026- Setting up YubiKey on Ubuntu and Fedora required extraordinary measures2026-07-22
- Tech-literate users struggle to get YubiKey working with phone2024-03-30
- Having to grab the YubiKey every time to use it is clunky2023-06-25
Losing the key locks you out, backups need multiple registered keysUnreviewed
20132026- Registering every key with each account is tedious and hard to keep in sync2023-01-31
- Must register multiple keys per site, remember which key matches which site, and carry backups2022-09-06
- Switching to a new security key means hunting down and re-registering dozens of unknown accounts2022-05-05
Must physically touch the key every single time it's usedUnreviewed
20132026- Unclear which process is requesting the hardware key touch2026-07-14
- User forgets the key is waiting for touch and can't see its flashing light2025-02-12
- Has to physically touch the key every single time it's used2023-03-10
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 50 complaints
- Must remove phone case and find working USB-C port to use YubiKey on mobile2026-10-12
- Setting up YubiKey on Ubuntu and Fedora required extraordinary measures2026-07-22
- Unclear which process is requesting the hardware key touch2026-07-14
- User can't tell which operation a touch confirms, so they press without knowing what they approved2026-06-04
- Must touch the key for every signature and manually add multiple keys2025-12-28
- Proper security is hard to use and makes recovery from mistakes expensive, and normies lose keys and get locked out2025-08-07
- Chrome demands a Yubikey PIN, so logging in still needs a password-like step2025-05-14
- Dialog forces an unwanted QR code choice; users must tap the key first to skip it2025-02-13
- User forgets the key is waiting for touch and can't see its flashing light2025-02-12
- NFC tag scanning on iPhone is slow, cumbersome, and shows an annoying animation when it fails2025-01-21
- NFC often fails to read with little feedback on holding it correctly2024-12-17
- Tech-literate users struggle to get YubiKey working with phone2024-03-30
- Having to grab the YubiKey every time to use it is clunky2023-06-25
- Exporting a key with wrong syntax silently left no backup, discovered only later2023-04-28
- Touch sensor triggers too easily, causing many unwanted activations2023-03-10
- Windows documentation is a disaster, so setup with Active Directory took forever2023-03-10
- Has to physically touch the key every single time it's used2023-03-10
- Registering every key with each account is tedious and hard to keep in sync2023-01-31
- Must re-enter the FIDO2 PIN on every key registration, so the user reset the key2022-12-10
- Must re-enter the FIDO2 PIN every time a key is registered2022-12-10
- Yubikey MFA feels cumbersome and a pain to do every time2022-12-06
- Must register multiple keys per site, remember which key matches which site, and carry backups2022-09-06
- Hard to see which SSH keys are stored and how to remove them2022-05-30
- Switching to a new security key means hunting down and re-registering dozens of unknown accounts2022-05-05
- Must press the key repeatedly, multiple times when fetching many remotes2022-02-16
- Microsoft requires a PIN on the YubiKey, making it unusable over NFC on iOS2022-02-16
- PGP and U2F workflow is cumbersome, requiring many signings per day2022-01-26
- Registering a backup key is impossible on some sites and easy to forget on others2021-10-14
- Clicking Accept doesn't enable functional cookies, so embedded video won't play without extra steps2021-10-05
- Hard to switch back to U2F mode without unplugging the key2021-05-19
- Having to fetch a physical key from another room interrupts focus for 30-90 seconds2021-02-26
- Resetting the key requires external software, and the reset option is hard to find2021-02-12
- Configuring keys requires juggling multiple Yubico apps and places, with verbose gpg agent commands2021-02-09
- Setting up a YubiKey takes many steps, and finding 2FA settings on websites is hard2021-01-17
- Feature comparison matrix is impossible to find on Yubico's site2020-10-04
- Hard to configure, and hard to find how to set up the key for common scenarios2020-10-03
- Yubikey didn't work with most sites, so the iPad was still needed for MFA2020-09-12
- Losing the key locks you out, and backups require buying and registering multiple keys2019-12-26
- Accidental touch triggers a long unwanted typing sequence that can't be undone2019-08-21
- Key only works on Android if NFC or OTG is enabled, and OTG turns itself off2019-08-21
- Accidental touches type the secret key string into random text fields2019-08-20
- Must re-enter PIN for every SSH request, with no short caching period2019-04-30
- YouTube on PS4 unlinks, forcing a disable-2FA, sign-in, re-enable workaround on a computer2019-04-30
- Setting up Linux systems to use the key across machines takes weeks of awkward workarounds2018-09-24
- Plugged-in key disables the Android keyboard and U2F needs an extra app2018-07-25
- Setting up hardware security keys for a small team needs too much command-line work2018-07-23
- Token randomly locks up during client auth when PGP mode is unlocked2018-05-03
- Indicator light flashes constantly with no way to turn it off2018-02-28
- MacOS PIV integration locks the YubiKey so GPG cannot access it2018-02-28
- Applets sometimes become unavailable, forcing the user to unplug and reseat the key2017-10-09