What I have learned and what I plan to do: Hotmail and passkeys

Thank you to all who advised me on the thread "After I set up Hotmail passkeys can I still use the password to log in?" I marked that one as resolved, not because I had solved my problem but because the information-packed discussion had, I thought, gotten out of control. I learned a lot from it.

I took it all under advisement, plus a number of Reditt threads and Google search finds. All of you put a lot of time and deep though tinto assisting me and I am grateful for all of it.

I decided to use Bitwarden as my password manager (Thank you Jason Rebholz for a great tutorial):
I set about learning how to store passcodes in Bitwarden and decided not to do that, thanks to this great Reddit discussion:
The conclusion of that discussion was validation of the question I asked in my thread, if your passkey is in your password-protected password manager, isn't it still only protected by a password? The answer is yes, so I decided to not store passcodes in Bitlocker. I recommend that thread for a lot of great information.

Among the loose ends I learned in that thread were that if you store a passcode in Android, Google populates it across all of your android devices, using its own Authenticator. Did you know that if you respond to Amazon's request to enter a passcode that one is also stored to Google Authenticator? I didn't.

The Reddit thread participants did not see passcodes as much safer than passwords, as long as those are strong and unique but they did see using passkeys instead of passwords as limiting access by scammers and phishers, and I see the benefit of that. They noted that these attacks are becoming harder to spot. In fact, I almost fell for one today.

So, I will set about setting passkeys for my email accounts on each of our computers here at home, and hope Microsoft does not eliminate passwords, which as far as I can see will be the only way to sign in to email on a new computer so I can set a passkey for it. Surely a lot of users will be confounded if that happens, and probably increase the number of users who leave for Linux or Loving County, Texas, population 48. My husband envisions that as our refuge.

Sorry about using the words passkeys and passcodes interchangeably. I will figure that out over time. And thank again to all of you. I'll be back, I am sure.

Sorry also that the forum posted those big images for Jason and Reddit. I ma too used up today to figure out how to revert them.

I assume you have either an Android or Apple IOS phone?

Simply use Microsoft Authenticator and make life less complicated.

antspants said:

I assume you have either an Android or Apple IOS phone?

Simply use Microsoft Authenticator and make life less complicated.

New Microsoft Authenticator app version for Android and iOS - July 23

Two factor authentication (TFA) is easy, convenient, and secure when you use Microsoft Authenticator. Use your phone, not your password, to log into your Microsoft account. Just enter your username, then approve the notification sent to your phone. Your fingerprint, face ID, or PIN will provide...

www.elevenforum.com

Click to expand...

I am just from another age. True, my Android phone asks me every day to sign in to Windows. My TV looks for content on my HP Printer's IP address. Fortunately my stove, my refrigerator, my washer and dryer, and my toaster oven are a bit too old to get involved. Thanks for the advice, though. Love your self-description and your closing tagline.