Chrome 93 for desktop version allows websites to verify phone numbers
SMS verification code is a verification method commonly used by many websites or services. This verification method does improve security in some sense.
Of course, in the past few years, there have been many cases of SMS hijacking for financial fraud, but generally speaking, there is no better alternative to SMS verification.
However, in terms of actual user experience, SMS verification is more troublesome. We often need to enter a verification code when entering a password when logging in to certain accounts.
This process will interrupt the user’s browsing and cause a bad experience for the user, so Google Chrome is trying to automatically read the verification code of the Android device across platforms.
Google has launched this feature in the Canary version for testing. The target version is Google Chrome v93, and the experimental feature needs to be turned on manually.
When this function is enabled, if the user logs in the same Google account on the Android Google browser, Google will automatically read and transmit the verification code to the desktop version when there is a verification code.
This cross-platform auto-filling technology helps users to verify quickly, and the verification code is usually unique to the website, so the security will not be affected.
Prerequisites
- A desktop or a laptop computer (Windows, Mac, Linux or Chrome OS).
- An Android phone with Google Play Services version 20.30.12 or higher.
- Chrome 93 or later, both on desktop or laptop and mobile. Chrome 93 Beta is available as of late July 2021.
- You need to sign-in to the same Google account on both desktop Chrome and mobile Chrome. For example, via https://myaccount.google.com/ or https://mail.google.com. No need to turn on sync.
- On your Android device, you need to sign-in to Android via “Settings->Google”.
- Chrome 93 must be the default browser on the Android device.
- Chrome 93 must be running either in foreground or background on the Android device.
To try this seamless phone number verification flow on desktop yourself, follow these steps:
- Go to https://web-otp-demo.glitch.me/ on desktop. Click the Verify button.
- Send the exact text message that was on the screen from a second phone to the Android device.
- When the SMS is delivered to the Android device, a dialog appears asking if you want to verify the phone number on the desktop. Press Submit to approve.
- On the desktop, the verification code sent to the Android device should be autofilled in the input field.
