Google’s Authenticator app has had a somewhat rocky history. I used it some time ago as the tool by which I could generate two-factor authentication (2FA) codes for various platforms that I use. The process is the standard one for 2FA – the platform generates a QR code, you scan this with your authenticator app, and it sets up the necessary 2FA account settings within the app. All seemingly very straightforward. The problem comes with ensuring that this store of 2FA configurations is kept appropriately backed up.
My experience with the early version of Google’s Authenticator wasn’t good. That’s because it didn’t back up the configurations: not locally on the phone, not to my Google account. There was no method to replicate this to a Google Authenticator app running on another device. Single point of operation, single point of failure.
The moment when I discovered the limitations of Google’s Authenticator app was when my phone failed. I wasn’t particularly pleased, both with Google for its weak design and with myself for not having checked this out. I had assumed, and we all know how that works out, thinking to myself that it was Google, after all, and surely it knows what it’s doing? Ah, well.
I moved over to Authy, which has been doing a good enough job for me. It allows my configurations between multiple authenticated devices, so I have Authy on my phone, my laptop and my desktop.
The “enable multi device” feature, which is somewhat badly named, allows me
