Week Three Questions, Tech News, & Tips

Aug 17, 2026 | Join Online Meeting > The Gadget Gurus:  I will review the current tech news. We will do our best to answer questions about computers, smartphones, apps, cameras, tablets, and the internet. Bring your tech issues and enjoy the meeting.
Your phone replaces 5 tools you probably still have in a drawer – makeuseof.com

 This Week’s Tip or Trick

Bitwarden Tip
Importing to Bitwarden is easy!
Bitwarden makes it easy to bring over your digital life from another service, with multiple supported methods.

Q:  Passkeys. Chromebook – Andrea
A:  How to Set Up Passkeys: 13 Steps, 90 Min [2026] – tech-insider.org
Roughly 5 billion passkeys are now in active use worldwide, according to the FIDO Alliance, and the prompt to “skip password, use a passkey instead” now shows up on Google, Apple, Microsoft, GitHub, Amazon, and PayPal sign-in screens.

• • Cryptographic Pair: Utilizes a private key kept securely on your local device and a public key held by the website’s server.  | More 
  • Phishing Resistance: Because they are structurally tied to specific domain origins, users cannot be tricked into signing on lookalike sites.  | More 
  • No Shared Secrets: Authentication relies on verifying a digital signature via biometrics or local PIN, meaning no text or credentials can be leaked or stolen from databases.  | What Is a Passkey, and How Is It Different From a Password 

• • Consumer Usage: By 2026, FIDO reported consumer passkey awareness hit 90%, with nearly half of users selecting them whenever available.
  • Corporate Integration: About 68% of enterprise organizations are piloting or deploying passkeys to neutralize credential abuse and MFA fatigue attacks. 
  • Zero Trust Compliance: Passkeys satisfy strict digital identity guidelines (NIST SP 800-63B), mapping directly to AAL2 and AAL3 assurance levels required by regulated industries.    | Zero Trust  

• • Storage Frameworks: Users must choose between synced passkeys (cloud-replicated via iCloud Keychain or Google Password Manager for recovery convenience) and device-bound passkeys (physically locked onto a single hardware key like a YubiKey for ultra-high security).
  • Setup Requirements: Modern minimum baseline operating systems include iOS 16, Android 9, macOS 13, and Windows 10/11 running updated Chromium or Safari browsers.
    

• Downgrade Attack Surface: Leaving legacy security fallback options like SMS-based 2FA active undermines the passkey’s core protection and remains a primary setup mistake.
• Account Lockouts: Users are strongly cautioned against deleting their traditional account passwords or fallback options until they have fully tested and validated cross-device authentication.
• Bluetooth Dependencies: Cross-device QR-code sign-ins require active Bluetooth handshakes as a mandatory proximity verification step, a common point of user error.

 Store and Sync Passkeys With a Password Manager

If you would rather not depend on Apple or Google’s sync ecosystem alone, a dedicated password manager can hold your passkeys instead.
This is also the more practical route.

News & Tip