Security experts recommend passwords with special characters that are more and more complicated and unique for each service that is used to make them difficult to guess by malicious people. Most people, however, for convenience, use the same credentials on multiple websites and apps, so they are easier to remember. To try to help people keep their accounts safe and have a different password, even complicated, for each service, without having to worry about having to remember, in Android 8.0 Oreo Google has simplified the use of automatic filling of fields through a password manager, with the user who is free to choose which one to use (there are in the Play Store, for example: LastPass, Dashlane, Keeper or 1Password).
In particular, on devices more and more used in daily life such as the telephone – in general, and not only for passwords – automatic compilation can make life much easier by remembering data such as passwords, email addresses, shipping addresses, credit card details and others – all with the consent of the user. With the new automatic field filling services offered by Android Oreo, password managers can only access the information needed to automatically compile apps, making data more secure.
Google in Android devices Oreo lists a specific set of password managers – which can be found in Android Settings on Android Oreo devices – that meet the company’s security and functional requirements. List that Google promises will continue to update over time.
How does a password manager work for Android?
To understand how a password manager works for Android just think that installing a password manager at the ‘device’ level is like having the password manager that is integrated into the Google Chrome browser (when you enter a password for the first time, the notification ‘do you want Chrome to remember this password?’) that you can use in all the applications installed on your Android device. Not by chance, Google includes by default its automatic filling service on all devices with Android 8.0 and higher, which allows you to use the data you have already saved in Chrome to enter passwords, credit cards, addresses and other personal information. However, it is possible to choose alternative password managers, such as those found in the Play Store and that have been developed by third-party developers.
Setting auto-fill on your Android device Oreo is simple: go to Settings, search for “Auto-fill” and tap “Auto-fill service“. If you already have an installed password manager, it appears in this list. Also in this section you can tap “Add service” to download the password manager you want from the Play Store.
And now? After setting up a password manager as an AutoFill service, the stored information is displayed in AutoFill whenever you are filling out forms for which the manager has saved data – for example, the username and password saved for login to Netflix will appear as a hint when you log in for an app for the first time to the Netflix app and so on for all other applications.
As reported in a Google blog post by Peter Friese, Developer Advocate for Google, the Mountain View company hopes that using the Google password manager or another downloaded from the Play Store the new automatic filling experience on Android devices Oreo may simplify the storage and retrieval of commonly typed information such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Tip: the password manager provided by Google is sufficient as it is complete, simple and secure (being developed by Google itself).