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What is Microsoft Autofill?

Microsoft lagging behind Google and Apple on browser war, and also fell behind on the password manager debut. Microsoft finally completed its password manager beta testing, and officially released Autofill password manager that utilizes Microsoft Authenticator. This is good news for Edge users, but Chrome users on the Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android can also benefit from it. We all know creating strong passwords for online accounts is a hassle, and remembering them is even worse. More free tools like Autofill will help online users from steering away from using weak passwords and reusing the same password for multiple accounts.

What is Google Password Manager?

Google password manager is built into the Chrome web browser, and it interacts with the web forms automatically if you're using the Chrome browser. The first time you submit a login form, the Chrome browser will prompt if you want to store the username and password pair in a vault on your computer, and whether you want to sync them to the cloud on your Google account. The next time you visit the same site, once you enter the username portion of the form Google Chrome will auto-populate the password field. If you sync your passwords with your Google account, all the passwords are available on every device you use as long as you use Google Chrome and sign onto your Google account.

Apple's iCloud keychain is a password manager for macOS and iOS devices including Macs, iPhones, and iPads. Username/password pairs, credit card information, Wi-Fi credentials, and other personal data can be stored in iCloud, and shared amongst all of your Apple devices. Your personal data are encrypted with 256-bit AES, and saved in your iCloud, and transferred to and from iCloud to your devices encrypted so it is very secure. The data stored in your keychain can be accessed through Safari, and some third-party Apple apps but not with Google Chrome, unfortunately.

What is 2FA?

2FA (2-factor authentication) is a form of MFA where a user is required to supply 2-forms of authentication to allowed access to the system. The traditional authentication system (or single-factor authentication) used the username/password pair to grant access to an account, but with a growing number of hacking due to the use of weak passwords prompts industry to offer an additional form of authentication to enhance the security of login access.

Web browsers today offer a built-in password manager, and auto-populate username and password on the websites you visit. This is a very convenient feature offered by virtually all web browser makers including Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge. The question is whether you can trust browser password managers to store your passwords without a security risk.

Multi-factor authentication also commonly known as MFA is an authentication process where more than one authentication mechanism is incorporated. A common implementation of MFA is the 2FA, which stands for 2-factor authentication. In a 2FA, two different authentication mechanisms are combined to successfully authenticate a user.