As I wrote just this week in Macworld, Apple has used a number of strategies to encourage users to switch to its products, among them, the “ice water in hell” approach of adapting some of its own software to rival platforms. That’s at least part of the reasoning behind Apple’s iCloud Keychain extension for Chrome, which extends the password manager feature from its own ecosystem to Chrome users on Windows.
As first covered by 9to5Google, in an unusual bout of personal computing bipartisanship, iCloud loyalists who also use Google's Chrome browser can now share passwords from their Keychain between Windows and Mac devices. And it's all thanks to a new browser extension that's now available in the Chrome Web Store.
Apple's Chrome extension also saves new passwords created in Chrome to the user's iCloud Keychain, which makes them available to other Apple devices with the same Apple ID account. Apple’s iCloud Keychain can create some solid passwords, but it would be almost impossible to remember them all. That is why the cross-functionality between Apple and Chrome is great. The extension was first spotted in version 12.0 of the iCloud app by The 8-Bit on January 27, and in the Chrome Web Store by 9to5Google on January 31. According to 9to5Google, Apple has since.
But not, interestingly, to Chrome users on the Mac, even though the extension can be installed in that version of Google’s browser. However, according to the text on the extension’s page, it appears to be designed to specifically work with iCloud for Windows, so it doesn’t actually do anything on the Mac beyond providing a broken interface.
That’s a bit of a disappointment for me: I end up using Chrome a decent amount for sites that Safari doesn’t support well or at all—for example, Roll 20, the virtual tabletop system that we use to record our Total Party Kill podcast over at The Incomparable.
Switching between browsers can often be a frustrating experience when it comes to passwords, since it either means a time-consuming process of looking up credentials or relying on multiple password managers, which itself adds overhead in time and energy. These days, I save the passwords for the sites I use in Chrome most frequently in Google’s own password-saving feature, and rely on 1Password for most of the rest, but it would certainly be a lot easier if Chrome on the Mac had access to an iCloud Keychain extension as well.
Something tells me this isn’t going to change any time soon—neither Apple nor Google have much incentive to make Chrome and iCloud Keychain play well together on the Mac—but as always, when big tech companies are at odds, it’s generally the users, caught in the middle, that end up losing.
[Dan Moren is the official Dan of Six Colors. You can find him on Twitter at @dmoren or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His latest novel, The Aleph Extraction, is out now and available in fine book stores everywhere, so be sure to pick up a copy.]
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As first covered by 9to5Google, in an unusual bout of personal computing bipartisanship, iCloud loyalists who also use Google's Chrome browser can now share passwords from their Keychain between Windows and Mac devices. And it's all thanks to a new browser extension that's now available in the Chrome Web Store.
Now, anyone using Safari to auto-generate passwords will be able to access them from Chrome (or, from other Chromium-based browsers that support Chrome extensions, like Microsoft's Edge). It's a welcome addition because we should all be using password managers. Now, if only our Chrome passwords could be seamlessly moved to our Apple Keychain, but perhaps someone will do that next.
Google Chrome Apple Keychain App
We knew it was coming — Although the service, iCloud Passwords, is out now, the addition was actually leaked last week via a Windows 10 iCloud update that advertised 'Support for iCloud Passwords Chrome Extension” as a new feature before any official announcement or release.
The introduction of the iCloud Passwords extension is a welcome surprise from Apple, which has tended to continue trying to push its own Safari browser and has limited cross-OS support... it's called the 'walled garden' for a reason.
Despite these efforts, though, Google's Chrome remains the most prominent browser choice for most people with recent statistics showing 48% of the market goes to Google, while Safari trails far behind at 35%, despite Apple adding features like its own third-party cookie blocking last year.
Google Chrome Apple Keychain Mac
Passwords are still the problem — Meanwhile, competitors like Microsoft think we all need to be planning for a different route. For some time now, the company has pushed for a passwordless future, envisioning the rise of alternatives like the FIDO2 security key, PINs, and the increased use of biometric data... which makes sense, given problems with security on its own Teams product.
Google Keychain
Apple Keychain Chrome Extension
Still, none of this is 100% impervious, unfortunately. Just take Google's Titan security key, for instance, which can still be cloned in certain circumstances (though, granted, not easily). The bottom line is, while there have been some great strides in cybersecurity in recent years, you can rest assured that others are working on keeping up with those very changes. In the meantime, extensions like iCloud Passwords make a huge difference for consumers, not only in terms of the odds of them following sound security practices, but also in terms of convenience.
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