Microsoft has announced support for third-party passkey managers in Windows 11: Third-party passkey manager support - Windows apps | Microsoft Learn
Does Bitwarden have plans to support this in the near term? That would be really neat, because I feel like lack syncability of passkeys across platforms is a major issue that needs to be solved for it to really take off as a viable alternative to passwords.
Here it is even mentioned, that they work together with the FIDO alliance, Bitwarden and others on this: Passkeys on Windows: Authenticate seamlessly with passkey providers - Windows Developer Blog
But unfortunately, I donât know more about it (including when that change will come to Windows 11?)âŚ
Ugh, reading the Microsoft documentation for this feature makes me fear that the passkey UX will become even worse than it already is. Now, instead of the Bitwarden browser extension being able to directly intercept passkey creation/authorization requests, we would have to first click through a âWindows Securityâ prompt.
Also, Windows will now force the User Verification to be done using Windows Hello, instead of allowing the third-party passkey manager to implement a User Verification method for passkeys stored there.
All that was really needed is a way to disable all passkey handling by the Windows OS, so that we could skip all of the unnecessary âWindows Securityâ prompts (when using Yubikeys, for example). Instead, what seems to have been developed is a framework for inserting even more Windows OS hooks into the handling of passkeys by other parties.
Passkeys are âand will remain â a dumpster fire.
I am able to use Passkeys, via the Bitwarden browser extension, on Windows 11 today using Brave.
I do not have a Microsoft account, only a local account.
Youâre able to use them in the browser, yes, but if Bitwarden were to use the passkeys API in Windows they could also be used to authenticate in other apps.
Here are two presentations from the âAuthenticate conference 2024â (Oct 14-16, 2024) by the FIDO Alliance:
âPasskeys on Windows: New Platform Featuresâ by Bob Gilbert, Software Engineering Manager, Microsoft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ams3QIbVJ08
And small glimpses also here, beginning at around 10:00: âPasskeys on Windows: Paving the Way to a Frictionless Future!â by Sushma K, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft and Ritesh Kumar, Software Engineer, Microsoft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZFs6Hhqxz0
PS: Also in those videos, they (MS) spoke of âlaunch sometime early in 2025â - but I havenât seen anything new to that⌠
As this isnât an official Microsoft website, they do mention Bitwarden by name so ÂŻ_(ă)_/ÂŻ
@MFKDGAF Yeah, Microsoft mentions Bitwarden also directly on itâs Windows Developer Blog, in a post from Oct 8, 2024 - see the link I posted here.
Petri cites their source in the very first sentence: " Microsoft has announced that itâs expanding support for passkeys in Windows 11." That link (same one @Nail1684 cited earlier) is a Microsoft site that mentions with whom they are working.
