Magic links are passwordless auth methods, that generate unique access links. These are usually valid for a short period of time and normally sent to the email you provide in the login step.
Personally, I'm not a huge fan, and I prefer to login with social accounts, as it's way easier than opening an email each time.
What is your experience with these? Do you use them?
Top comments (21)
I think using a provider that already has hardened security is still a nice way to login. Honestly, they dont gain much about you other than the fact you use the service X. Their wide spread trackers all around the web does most of the work.
I wish more people cared tho.
Recently we switched away from social accounts (as Google started asking too many questions regarding who are our users and what do they use our app for etc.), we generate a unique login link and send it to user's email address. They can login by clicking the link.
And yes, users love it, remembering/resetting password is a mess, especially when dealing with non technical users. Users still have option for using password, but they often use signin with email.
Hi, do you have any stats to share ? What % of your users are using it ? What's your customer segments in term of age ? What industry ? And no, I'm not the police :D
That's exactly what the post's about. Can you elaborate a bit on whether or not your users like it better this way? 👀
Users like it, specially when they are not very tech savvy.
Great if it works for you and your clients 😉👍
It's not about trust only. If the email provider scans your emails and executes your login links you will instantly see that when you want to use the link. It has been used.
Your inbox is your single point of failure. So it needs your strongest password. Its your only fallback when you forget passwords to other sites and get "reset" links.
I say: when you implement "reset" links you can also support just magic links.
I spend a lot of time researching this subject and created my own implementation that is using Databunker secure session store:
github.com/securitybunker/databunk...
My implementation of passwordless login with magic link
You can use my example and adjust it for your needs. It is a stand-alone solution. You do not need to pay for any 3rd party service. Here is a link:
github.com/securitybunker/databunk...
To be honest I hate them. I have seen them more on training course providers recently and the issue I have is these are allocated to my work email address which I don’t have access to our of work. This is a huge pain as it means I can’t actually do any of the courses in my own time so it is actually a restriction in my view.
I'm enjoying reading the answers here. Considering the possible use of magic links as a Forem feature (in addition to other forms of auth) with some reservations about how to best approach ideas like this from UX and security perspectives.
I'd say I don't like them, because logging in with a unique id+password is 100% effortless with a password manager, whereas magic links require opening my email which is annoying because it takes time, it's guilt-inducing when there are emails I should be responding to, and it's a context switch because all these other parts of my life appears and suddenly I'm off doing 4 other things and I never did get around to using your service.
Email-notifications for unexpected logins are a fine way to include the email factor without being too intrusive IMO.
Does passwordless auth solve any fundamental security issues?
How is opening your email program and instantly seeing the magic link email any slower than remembering your many social media logins (when they are not cached you are back to remember logins and passwords). When you forgot your social media password and/or haven't logged in on the device you need to reset your password. Then you have to check your email at least once to actually reset the password and then you have to update all your other devices with this new password.
passwordless ftw
You only have to remember one password: that of your inbox.
You can always add another factor like WebAuthn or OTP
I'm setting up a site right now that will use magic links, the reasoning is a low barrier to entry. My site has an inviting service where users can invite other users, I wanted an invited user to just click an invite link and immediately have access to the site. That sort of thinking just carried over to the whole app and I just got rid of passwords in general.
There is still a remember me option when generating the email token.
Also, magic.link is a great and easy to set up solution if you ever come across the need to use them in your own projects 😉