Duo Mobile Reviews

The this app Mobile app is realistically one of the largest stressors I have experienced in my life. Upon getting a new phone I was unable to access any of my school work/grades/tax information for months. If you need to get a new device it requires that you verify the new device with your old device, but for many people when a new device is purchased they no longer have access to their old device. Their “help” support staff is among one of the worst of its kind (which is saying something). It took me approximately 6 hours to recover my accounts.

Moving on to normally logging in the process is arduous and frankly broken. I have no way to remove my old phone number as the primary verification. There is a “click to accept” box to remain logged in for 24 hours on the login page, although you must be verified to click the box, and upon verification you are immediately redirected away from the page. The system is inherently broken. Yes calling may be faster than scrolling through all your texts looking for old verification codes, but I should NOT have to receive a phone call or spend minutes searching my texts simply to do economics homework.

If you are an administrator considering using Duo, please find some other service. Using this app mobile will cause your employees/students immense stress and disdain against your organization.

This is the worst app I've ever used. Absolutely unnecessary and difficult. I've put up with it until now, but I can no longer sit silent. I recently got a new phone and in oder to reconnect this app to my university I need to log into my university account. But in order to log into my university account I need to verify it through this app. So obviously through this very dumb circle I can no longer log into my university account on my phone. this app does offer verification though my old phone, but guess what? I no longer have that phone so it is absolutely impossible for me to verify my account through my old phone. I sincerely hope my university stops using Duo as this is the worst experience I've ever had. All I want to do is be able to check my grades on my phone and I'll never be able to do that. And soon my 120 day access will run out on my labtop and I will no longer be able to access my school account which contains my grades, classroom, assignments, and more as I cannot verify my university account through this app. Making it virtually impossible to have access to my school account all because I got a new phone. This is the WORST app and experience I've ever had.

I just want to say that my experience with this app started out a tad rocky, but very quickly got better. I have gone through 2 phones, and helped my friend set up his new one and had no problems. The issues people are running into are that they're not setting up a secondary form of authentication. I use push notifications to authenticate, but when I replaced my phone, I just had this app call me to authenticate and I was in my accounts in seconds. I was then able to add my new phone to this app. If y'all just dig a little into the settings, you'll find everything you need. The company is giving you the tools for not only using your current device, but also very quickly adding new ones, even when your old one is out of commission. Use those tools, and you'll be fine. An authenticator app shouldn't be easy to bypass. That's the point of 2-factor authentication. Learn Duo , and you’ll succeed

No one cares about me enough to try to hack me. The much bigger risk is that I forget my password and lose access to my accounts! This is happened to me many times because of these stupid mandatory changes and is WAY WORSE HARMFUL than the risk of actually being hacked. These “security features” make simple services a PAIN. And they commonly LOCK YOU OUT OF YOUR OWN ACCOUNT. I changed my phone number recently, and this has caused me to get LOCKED OUT of many basic services that require these stupid “two factor authentication” YEARS worth of information GONE because of “Security” What a joke! Also, why should I trust YOU with m my information? Because I DON’T, and I should have the right to NOT give it to you!

Many services now make me change my password and use special characters which means I’m much more likely to forget it, losing all of my information! Stop forcing people to use these. They don’t make you safer, they just make your life more annoying and more likely to lose your information due to you forgetting your needlessly complicated password. Listen to the people.

I wish I could give you and companies like you 0 stars but I can’t

Look, I admit that I am not an IT security expert, but I have had compromised emails that security technicians were able to secure in moments. On the other hand, this app has greatly reduced my emailing efficiency for the sake of security I do not need. It seems that they do not actually make a profit by marketing to individuals, but to institutions that choose to invest without surveying their own workers (insert the name of most universities in the US). Duo prevents you from doing basic things with your email account if you do not open and use their app. It is literally an app that is made solely to promote itself at the expense of its investors. If you can avoid it, do not download Duo. If you have not choice but to download it, let it do its thing to frustrate you, then write a review and communicate with your employer/institution. From my perspective, this is a parasitic application that is blindly invested in by people who don’t fully understand (or need to understand) what it actually is or does. If I could put negative stars on my rating, I would. I hate Duo with a passion and I hope that enough people will respond to it as I am now, soon.

This works perfectly fine to enable 2 factor authentication for school or business. However I’ve seen some upset user stories so I want to share this piece of advice: Compartmentalize Work, School, Personal authentication apps. Once you have this app downloaded it might be tempting to point your personal accounts to this app for convenience but remember your this app enterprise or uni account isn’t reliable for personal use as you are not the account owner. Microsoft, LastPass, Google just to name a few all have 2 factor apps. Download one of them and keep your personal life separate from business. To those that have “new phone” horror stories, I’d personally recommend an authenticator with cloud backup support. Such as Microsoft Authenticator. (Not affiliated with MSFT but their app works well for me.)

*** Please read MORAL implications

I am not writing to critique Duo itself as I just downloaded Duo . A small background, I work for a company who now require this specific app to be downloaded on our personal phones, or we will have "resigned" from the company.

My immediate problem with Duo is it gives all control to the company, including the control to direct Duo to change my phone, and no ability to turn off Duo while not at work.

I feel if Duo is being forced on employees by employers to save them money, it should be a "moral" obligation on the part of the developer to give the employee (owner of the phone) some control over Duo and how it may function on the phone. But instead, that area is turn off to the employee and total control is granted to the employer.

In my case there is no on/off toggle where Duo could be shut down while not needed to perform work functions, and thus reducing the employer's ability to mis-use Duo on your phone on your personal time.

Please consider the MORAL obligation to allow the person who is being forced to use your app to have some control how it will be used on their own personal phones. Not everyone works for company that are completely trustworthy. Just because the company made the agreement with you, should not automatically eliminate all rights employee may have over their own personal property, nor give 100% control to the employer over a non-company own phone.

I hate the time required to perform two-factor authentication, and so was dreading when my institution began to require it. I was pleasantly surprised that the this app app handles this task rapidly, much more so than any other app-based or text-based method I’ve used. Usually within about 2 seconds, I can approve a request with a single tap of my Apple Watch (the notification includes an “approve” button) or via two taps of my phone. I wouldn’t hesitate to switch to this system for any other account I use.

EDIT: looking in another review, it appears that I could also be quickly approving with a single swipe or 3D-touch and tap from my phone. Perhaps a brief blurb instructing this within Duo would be helpful because I would have been doing so all along!

After reading the negative reviews, I’ve come to the conclusion that people seriously need to take a moment to understand HOW 2FA works, WHERE and WHAT the roles/responsibilities lie and are for each vendor (eg Coinbase vs this app), and WHY 2FA is important. Is Duo perfect? No. Does it work well for what it was designed to do? Yes. Can it be improved? Yes.

Here is my wishlist to improve the usability of Duo , hopefully the devs are reading! (1) I have well over 50 tokens (many from the same service), please introduce folders or a way to organize/group tokens. (2) Allow for custom icons instead of restricting it to just the ones you’ve decided to include; this would also help me find tokens more quickly. (3) Allow for token access from a widget on the lock screen (either display passcode or tap to immediately open the token in Duo ).

Ever buy a new phone? Break your old one? Or worst of all, lose it? Well thanks to this app, you can say goodbye to all your passwords as well!

Once you redownload this app, every account you had linked to the old app is totally unrecoverable! You cannot link your new this app app to your old iteration. This means that locked behind a shattered screen or somewhere in the back of an AT&T store, your old 2FA is permanently locked. You get to reset every single 2FA you’ve ever used now! Use this app for coinbase? I hope you love emailing them your driver’s license and waiting a week to get back in to your account! Use this app for school? Endless late and missed assignments await as you hope IT responds to your email! Does your boss make you use this app? You might as well pack up your desk now.

That’s right, I want to fully reiterate this: when you redownload this app, you lose every single linked account’s 2FA and have absolutely no way whatsoever of regaining it! And that is *by design, it is an intentional choice by the company!*

My life was far, far too easy before this app came into it. Now, it’s exciting! Whether I’m unable to perform basic tasks at school, kept out of my employee accounts, or locked out of my personal savings, I’m always unsure in what way this app will attempt to ruin my life next. It’s like the brisk of a bright spring morning, you never know what’ll happen next. Thanks, this app!

I love the interface and how there is a variation of event based logins and OTP requests depending on what security factors are necessary for what apps and services.

My wishlist of features mostly consists of needing a complication on my Apple Watch to easily access to the application, rather than needing to search or find in my App Library on the watch, as well as widget access on the iPhone and iPad for further quick access to each OTP passcode I need to type in, as they don't always send push notifications when there is a login attempt made. Other than that, I think Duo has come a long way and is user friendly with security as its top priority which is what I would want for any service like this

As far as working as a 2fac Duo is fine, it does that. The issue with it is that it’s a really simple app but has an annoying interface. If the buttons for the push notification could be moved to a more thumb friendly location that would be great. It’s just a screen with 2 buttons, there’s no reason to make me adjust my grip on the phone so I can reach the accept button. I should be able to pick the phone up and hit the button in one motion. Not pick the phone up fumble with the position in my hand then hit the button. It’s annoying and unnecessary. The whole screen is there to use for this purpose and is empty. The buttons are large but the phone screen is also large and it puts the buttons out of comfortable reach for one hand use. Stack them in the middle or something. Maybe a flick gesture, or both, I dunno.

Seeing all the low ratings based on a business’ or university’s decision to apply additional security to their networks, I had to add my two cents. It is 2FA, not this app, about which most are railing. If you don’t like 2FA, rid the world of hackers and thieves that will use every available means to get into any network they can. Until you accomplish that, accept the fact that for those trying to secure a network, 2FA is a necessary precaution, much like a deadbolt on a door. And this app is a good method for applying 2FA. We primarily use this app Push for accessing our systems and it works very well.

Unrelated note: this app works much better than this rating system, which will tell you after the fact that a nickname has been used but won’t suggest one that hasn’t been...

2FA seems to be the new standard as far as consumer security is concerned. At first I was a bit frustrated with the inconvenience of having to use my password and phone to log on to my university account, but the added security is definitely worth it. There so many malicious actors when it comes to attacking university data and this switch to this app Mobile is for the better. Couple of tips: remember to keep one time passcodes on hand, and allow third party accounts to reconnect automatically (for when you reset your phone or get a new iPhone). Definitely recommend Duo not just for school accounts, but any other account you want to add extra security to.

Edit - issue seems to have been fixed. Also, leaving the this app app running in the background on the phone, which I hadn’t been doing before, helps.

I implemented the free tier of this app to safeguard my personal VPN against unauthorized access. It works great and having an Apple Watch app is neat too. But recently, I noticed that my watch app wouldn’t generate passcodes anymore. Push notifications to the Watch still work. Restarting the watch seems to work once and then it won’t give codes anymore.

I couldn’t find a way to send feedback in Duo itself, so I decided to leave a review. Hope this minor bug can be ironed out so I can get back to enjoying that extra convenience!

I have been a happy this app Mobile user for 5+ years, but the latest update brought with it some issues. First the good: I can access a fuller version of this app on my Apple watch (5) and generate and OTP directly from the watch app. This is FANTASTIC. Now the gripe: I can feel the push notification on my watch, but when I raise it to approve, sometimes there’s nothing there, and when I look at my phone’s lock screen: also nothing. I have to open Duo on my phone to approve. This is a small-ish inconvenience, but the bug is inconsistent (sometimes push works on the watch, sometimes it doesn’t, and I can’t divine a pattern yet), and for an app with one job, a small, introduced inconvenience is a relatively big deal. Looking forward to seeing this fixed!

Truly cannot imagine a worse method of 2FA. Why can’t I use Face ID? Touch ID? Or just a push to my laptop? But no, that would make too much sense. Definitely better to require the use of another device, because logging in to canvas needs to be more complicated than logging in to my BANK. Duo is terrible in every sense of the word. If you are an administrator or employer requiring others to use this, you should be fired. On the spot. Using Duo is overly complicated and frustrating, not to mention a poor decision—if your phone is dead, you can’t log in. If this app had a desktop app I wouldn’t have complaints, but the use of a whole other device to log in to check my grades??? Overly and unnecessarily complicated. If you are considering the use of Duo as 2FA, I am BEGGING you to consider any other option. Duo is terrible and deserves to be taken off Duo Store.

I use this app to login to my university account, I have too. I never had any real issues with Duo and didn’t really mind using it. However with the new update where they changed the UI, you can no longer refresh the page. Which is incredibly annoying. Before, I’d be able to send a push to this app and then just refresh Duo and the approval would come up instantly. Now, I find myself having to sit there and wait for Duo to figure things out. It takes sometimes a minute or more for the push approval to pop up in Duo . Why would they take away the refresh feature? I always hate it when apps take away functionality with new ‘refreshed’ UI updates. It’s a terrible design/engineering philosophy.

All the low ratings are from end users who like to complain. Here’s the real truth. Duo and platform work very well, far better than most MFA systems. I know because I am the Sys Admin who configures the servers and infrastructure.

We have hundreds of end users and they love this app. Its easy to use and convenient. It always works. Switching to a new phone is a ten second task, and easy. If you are having a bad experience, then your system admin is the problem, not this app.

The latest Nov 2021 update has gone in the wrong direction with the UI though. The prompt on an unlocked screen is now tiny. There’s no direct Approve option from a locked screen. this app - please bring back those nice UI features.

this app provides a really great 2fA experience, far better than most I’ve dealt with to date. The push notifications are generally fast, and having Apple Watch notification approvals is a fantastic time saver.

Virtually *all* of the negative reviews appear to be folks who, frankly, are completely clueless about how 2fA works or what it’s for. The fact that simply copying this app to a new, unauthenticated device doesn’t immediately provide access to your work accounts is a *PRO*, not a con — it means the Authenticator is doing its job to prevent unauthorized logins!

Thank you for writing a quality 2fA app that is stable, robust, and easy to use.

I haven’t actually used Duo yet and I’m annoyed I have to, but speaking realistically, 2FA is just a way for school to keep everyone’s data safe. It’s a fairly aggressive answer in my opinion, but I’m sure it’ll be effective. That’s a whole other thing hackers would have to infiltrate. So I’ll deal with the inconvenience.

But MAN the reviews are harsh. Kudos on whoever’s job it is to respond as the developer to reviews, you’re definitely catching all of them. I gotta ask, is there like a script you follow for most sorts of responses or is every response organic? Because some of the responses seem clearly prepared and almost glib to a certain extent, but others (especially responses to unnecessarily critical reviews) tend to be eloquent, but thorough in response to the defense of the service. When I read it I’m thinking “Man this guy really wants to try easing peoples uncertainties with the product.” So kudos!

We were told to use Duo for 2 factor authentication by my university. I checked the reviews and saw a lot of very poor reviews and kind of went “oh no.”

These reviews as far as I can tell now are mostly just people who were also required to use Duo , and had never used two factor authentication before. Duo has been bug free for me and has the most convenient approach I have seen. They are complaining about two factor authentication as a system and being required to use it, not how well Duo functions.

Losing money fast! Downloaded this program to put another layer of security on my cryptocurrency account (Coinbase) on my iPhone 6S. I do NOT use iCloud. It was working fine, then later I decided I didn’t want it, so I deleted it thinking it would also delete the two-way authentication. I could still log in to Coinbase for several about 6 months after, and even updated CoinBase from time to time - never having to put in a key from this app Mobile (since I deleted Duo anyway, I thought it wiped out two-way authentication). Suddenly, to my surprise, IT NOW REQUIRES A KEY FROM this app MOBILE!!! So I re-downloaded Duo thinking I’ll just simply redo two-way authentication I get from Duo. NOPE!! Now I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO RECOVER my Coinbase app, no help to this app Mobile. LOSING THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS BECAUSE OF Duo!!!!

Daughter’s university recently implemented usage of this app. If I need to log in to pay something, I have to wait for her to get the approval. The problem is, we are in different time zones. So she may be asleep when I need to access her account. It is extremely frustrating, and there should be a way to have two different devices authorized for approval. At times when we are together, there can be a lag when she gets the actual notification. As others have mentioned, if you don’t see the notification pop up you can easily miss it as it doesn’t stay on the screen. Please make an option for two devices...it would also be helpful for when you get a new phone and still have access to authentication on the second device.

I happily used this app Mobile for years before I switched to a new phone without thinking to update my accounts. Had I known that at some point I could have started backing up my authenticator codes to iCloud, I would have done so. Now, I’m locked out of two of my most important accounts with no recourse. This could have been prevented with a simple pop up, text, or email to users notifying them about this feature. Even if your job requires you to use this software for your corporate login, stay far away for personal use. While your IT administrator can help you authenticate in, they shouldn’t have to do the extra legwork because of this app Mobile’s failure to communicate with their users.

If you read the negative reviews, you’ll see people are complaining about two-factor authentication (2FA) in general. Yeah, it is an inconvenience. The advantage is increased security. Most of these people should be complaining with their IT departments or any service that requires it. Unfortunately, this app is what they see when inconvenienced and this blame this app.

If you ever had to use a different 2FA provider, then you would realize that this app Security is leagues better than anything else out there.

Duo works well, just lacks a couple key features.

The ability to add names to site codes, instead of just selecting "other" for third-party, needs to be added. Right now the only way to identify different websites (one not included in the preset list) is to add "website name" before the account name. You start to loose track of which codes belong to which sites.

Also, the ability to manually sort is nice, however, multiple types of auto sort feature would be nice i.e.: sort by alphabetical, most recently used, *MOST OFTEN USED* etc.

The ability to group multiple account logins under one website would be awesome!

Like what you guys do. Works flawlessly so far. Keep up the good work and please keep these thoughts in mind for future updates 📳

UPDATE: Thank you to the developer for responding to my review. They recommended I ensure my iOS is updated. It is, and that doesn’t fix the problem. I also went to their recommended help pages. They also did not fix the problem. I don’t know what’s wrong with the this app system, but my login attempts just don’t trigger push notifications on my phone anymore.

ORIGINAL POST: Before, every time I needed to login to something on my phone, I’d get an easy push notification. Now those notifications no longer show up and I have to go through the more annoying process of texting codes or opening Duo . Please fix this.

I have to use this for work and overall use it almost exclusively on my Apple Watch - would love addition for support of a complication I can add to my watch face so can quickly launch as otherwise I have to hit the side button to load apps that I have added as favorites to the Dock and select this app and adds a few more seconds which adds up over the course of the day as I launch Duo about 20-30 times a day. Otherwise works great.

This would get at least four stars if the UI on the Apple Watch matched the one on the iPhone. The iPhone UI selections cover two different corners and is easy to navigate.

I love that this app has an Apple Watch connection. The Watch face is much smaller than the iPhone, so why did they design the Watch so it’s much harder to use? The ‘Approve’/‘Deny’ buttons are thin stripes across the Watch face. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hit the ‘Approve’ button and my fat finger has instead hit the ‘Deny’ button instead. It’s very frustrating.

My college uses this app for protection but it makes everything harder, and I’m not convinced that it makes our accounts any safer. Logging in is a hassle, communication between two devices is bad and sometimes does not work, switching devices is difficult, and the passcodes almost never work. I would pay to not use Duo and go back to the way it was. I have experienced being locked out of my school information website because my phone was dead, been in class without access to my notes because I did not have my phone to allow access into my own account. Duo makes everything harder.

The iPhone app works very well, but the watch implementation needs work. There are 2 areas to improve: support for independent watch app for people who own the cellular version of the watch. When my phone battery dies I can use the watch app without the phone. Also if I forgot my phone at home I’m out of luck. Secondly the UI for watch should be improved, make the approve button on the top and dent button on the bottom not next to each other, fat fingered many times with the watch.

This was working fine when I just Haden’s system needing two step verification. I could choose push, passcode, or call. Now that I have a second system added, the three options are still there. However, when I request a Push, I can only get a passcode. Then I have to cancel the request and change to passcode. This should be an easy fix, but there is no Help contact information.