One GenXer faces the authenticator premise.
For maybe two years, I’ve heard about authenticator apps. I don’t generally like to change if it’s not needed, so for a long time I didn’t use one.
At the same time, I appreciated the advantage of two factor authentication: if someone gets your username and password, they still need to get something off your phone, for instance, to log in. Nowadays, a typical person always has their phone on hand, so a hacker penetrating two factor authentication seems a lot less likely than just cracking a name and password.
For a long time I just would provide my texting number and get the second code for 2fa that way. Yet, some places don’t seem to want that. (Perhaps I’ll look into why in another post.)
Yesterday I finally broke down and decided to try an authenticator app. The research behind it took about an hour, but downloading it, then putting it to use, took only around five minutes. So far, I’m impressed.
I’m not going to say which authenticator app I adopted, because people have their own reasons for choosing one versus the other. However, I began with a very helpful video from Cyber Lab on YouTube: Best Authenticator Apps in 2025 (Top 5 Tested and Reviewed).
Cyber Lab’s video, about twelve minutes long, goes deeper than I had been thinking regarding authenticator apps. It gave me some very useful perspective.
In broad strokes, here’s my experience.
- The app I went with, I downloaded from Google Play onto my mobile phone.
- Later, I was logged into a site on a PC where it offered 2fa.
- How a site offers to turn on 2fa, with an authenticator, seems to be that it shows a QR code one can scan. (A printed code may be shown as well, which one can enter manually.)
- I opened my mobile phone, opened the authenticator app, then tapped that I wanted to add a new input.
- Next, I scanned the QR code.
- An authentication number then appeared on the screen for me to enter, which I entered at the site for 2fa.
- Then, 2fa was set up through the authenticator app.
After 2fa is established between the site and the authenticator, it’s simpler. When one goes to log in at the site with 2fa, one enters their username and password as usual. Next, the site sends the user to the authenticator app to retrieve a log-in code.
That’s my experience, anyway. Like I say, I’m happy with it.