Authy has long been my go-to app for all things two-factor authentication (2FA) because it runs on everything – all my desktops, my iPhone, my iPad and my Android phones. It’s super easy to use on the desktop: keep the app open and I can have a 2FA six-digit code with a few mouse clicks. It even copies the code onto the clipboard, so pasting into a site couldn’t be simpler.
Last month, I wrote of my displeasure with Authy as it had decided to close down the desktop apps later this year, and how this would make me reconsider its use. I have a workable solution, as the iPhone/iPad app will work on an M-processor Mac desktop, giving me some continuity. But my primary desktop in the lab is a 2018 Mac mini running a six-core Intel Core i7 processor. Not the fastest CPU any more, but 64GB of RAM helps, as does the built-in 10GbE port. It still does sterling work, but I was always going to move to an M-based Mac mini during 2024 if and when Apple launched one with an M3 inside. I’m hoping they arrive soon.
So I have actually got a route forward for my primary desktop, without resorting to finding my phone to look up a 2FA and then manually typing it into a website.
However, when Authy announced that the app would go unsupported on 19 March rather than during the autumn – with no reason given for this change – it gave me only a few weeks to consider my options. I could keep using the desktop app and accept that it’s unsupported: this
