Yubico Authenticator Reviews

To get two different key types (PC and iWhatsit) working on both classes of device with ONE website took three hours of fooling with terse instructions and a load of mysterious, unexplained acronyms. This is supposed to be a slick, secure way to use two-factor authentication (2FA) to log on to web sites. However, the setup process is so convoluted, aggravating, and failure-prone, it seems better for my blood pressure and mental health to turn off 2FA and just forget the whole thing. If ever you get it set up right, it works correctly. I am a retired fifty-year computer geek. I can only wonder what chance an ordinary home user has to get going. Support is nonexistent. I submitted a simple question a week ago, and have gotten nothing but the robotic initial acknowledgment.

Update after response: The email alias address I used to open the requests is not my Apple alias address. I own and administer my private email domain, so no spam folder issue. Search on the email domain.

I really like yubico’s way keeping everything on my YubiKey. Much better than cloud backup or no backup at all. Google bit me with that when I moved to a new phone.

Yubico support is fantastic. I contacted them to ask how to disable the NFC OTP notifications. They were very helpful. Then what do you know, the next version of Authenticator comes out a couple days later and there’s a new, easy peasy option to disable the notifications! If only all product support was this good.

Now if they’d just allow editing and rearranging the entries and duplicating keys (for backup) :)

It would be perfect if it didn’t have a strange glitch. Every time I try to edit the name of the account I’m adding, the text field glitches out and enters letters that I’m not adding.

This is the only time it happens - I’m not pressing anything on my phone and haven’t had similar issues on any other app.

What’s going on?

Im excited about YubicoAuthenticator, but i cant figure out how to set up my iphone’s keychain with YubicoAuthenticator’s biometric”touch id” feature for the yubikeys’s password protection.. everytime i try my stored password is always incorrect..i have to go through the process of manually typing in my password..other than that small inconvenience, 5 stars

YubicoAuthenticator is clean and well organized. I believe there is a bug with the NFC capability sometimes though.

~50% of the time, the “reading data” prompt takes a LONG time. 10+ seconds.

The reason why I think it’s a big is because, if YubicoAuthenticator is “reading data” with no end in sight and I remove my key... it instantly says “success!” And everything works as it should.

A 5 on the pc the 5 NFC key and on here on 2, and now a huge selection of keys… Good concept but what’s the point, now I have to keep a notebook for when I want to check my emails on here. Got booted off two emails, heck O don’t even use that other Authenticator and they asked for it…. So basically spend a nice chunk for a key for iPhone that plugs in, a different key for the computers and two backups and haven’t checks my androids compatibility of nfc….

I love YubicoAuthenticator and my YubiKey 5 NFC, but the one thing I don’t like about YubicoAuthenticator is having to scan my key twice when it’s protected by biometrics. I scan it, scan my fingerprint, then scan the key again. It’s inconvenient and I see no reason for if.

Other than that, however, it was able to replace my Google Authenticator app with ease and add an extra layer of protection.

I appreciate software engineers who take the time to write informative update “What’s New” sections.

Most lazy developers simply put “bug fixes and performance updates”, especially when they are trying to hide feature removal on forced updates.

I really like the Yubikey, but YubicoAuthenticator has just taken a serious step backward.

Before the most recent update, when I plugged in my Yubikey 5Ci, I had to select an account and then touch the key, simple.

Now, I have to plug it in, select an account, then a menu pops up where I have to select “calculate”, then touch the key. Why the extra click to “calculate”? More importantly, why is “delete” on the same menu as calculate?? Let’s play the odds here, for every time I use my yubikey, I’m probably going to “calculate” 1000 times more often than I want to delete the account, so why isn’t that the default anymore?

Delete, un/favorite, etc. should be buried options and the default action should just be to authenticate.

Edit: it works now. It only worked when tapping the nfc on my iPhone mini near the top right of the back of the phone with the case on. I thought this was going to fill in passwords for me but I could only get it to work with apps like gmail or LastPass that accept it.

Moreover, I can’t seem to get it to work to paste in the 2fa keys for say outlook or other login providers. It just pasted in cccccc.

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I am trying to use my new Yubico 5C but it’s not connecting with my iPhone with nfc. I have the standard usb one.

-1 star for not being able to edit entries. Not being able to rearrange items in the list, or add the “require touch” option if forgotten in setup. Deleting and re-adding entries is a bad edit method.

-1 star for not being able to scan QR codes from photos. Needing a second device to add accounts to YubicoAuthenticator is severely inconvenient.

Doesn’t seem to work, despite successfully “pairing” yubikey neo or adding a new account to authenticate everything is reset and I have to start over. Locked into an endless cycle of adding and re-adding. Is this an attempt to get me on a newer yubikey? If so, where does it end, should I purchase one every year? Was expecting more from Yubico, will go back to using my other Authenticator app.

happily used YubicoAuthenticator (v1.5.0) on my iphone SE2 with my yubikey 5 NFC (firmware 5.2.6). upgraded phone to iphone 12 pro max and installed YubicoAuthenticator ; i’ve yet to be able to scan the yubikey 5 NFC. it does work with a 5Ci, but i thought the value add was portability. hoping this is just user error, but i can’t recommend based on this experience.

YubicoAuthenticator effectively lets you implement hardware security key authentication even on websites that don’t natively support it. The new smartcards features in YubicoAuthenticator also let me use my S/MIME certificate stored on my YubiKey to sign my emails from within the iOS Mail app! ❤️

Unfortunate to see many outdated and misinformed reviews: the NFC implementation for iOS is fast and easy to use with the compatible keys.

If you want your TOTP codes to be secure and portable, there’s simply no better option. Google Auth doesn’t migrate; Authy creates additional attack vectors. Yubikey-based TOTP doesn’t even need a phone.

YubicoAuthenticator isn’t good as I thought it was going to be. I was never able to add the key to YubicoAuthenticator and the phone kept saying “The requested functionality is missing or disabled in the key configuration.” That in the first page but if I went to the settings it will red it but never kept the information of the key or the info i was inserting. (I tried everything in the support Webb site and no luck)

i am using the Security Key NFC by Yubico

I was having trouble getting the Yubikey to function with the iOS app after it working on the Mac. Support got me straight, and everything works well on iOS and MacOS. Support is great. Having the physical key gives me piece of mind.

Does everything I want without flakiness.

2 nitpicks.
The Success popover shows for so long after communicating with the device.
Also, an option to add the same QR code/value to another key would be nice since I store the passwords on both of my keys.

Email support is vague and slow, documentation is also vague , aside from that it works well

I don’t know why there are so many negative reviews, YubicoAuthenticator works great. Love the ability to require touch before a token is generated.

This is a great way to avoid needing to transfer TOTP seeds to new phones. The one improvement I’d like would be some way to have a backup on two keys but that seems like a usability challenge.

I’ve been stuck using another Authenticator app for years now and Yubico has finally released exactly what I needed. I’d give it more stars if I could!

Despite YubicoAuthenticator Store listing showing the iPad Pro as compatible, the YubiKey Authenticator app does not currently support the iPad Pro. On launch it states “This device has neither a Lightning port nor an NFC interface...” Apparently, they haven’t yet added support for the USB-C YubiKey.

YubicoAuthenticator honestly makes all other authenticator apps seem just ok. This level of security is exactly what I was looking for. Well done Yubico!