Password management firm 1Password has launched a public beta for a program that implements passwordless logins, joining the trend to eliminate its bread and butter: passwords. Those who sign up to participate, creating a new 1Password account via the public beta, will get “an extended free trial that lasts for the duration of the beta,” the company says. Initially, “the ability to unlock 1Password with a passkey is reserved for new users, but will be made available to those with existing 1Password accounts sometime in 2024. Passkeys let people sign in to accounts without having to memorize a password or manage a secret key.

Last year, 1Password joined the FIDO Alliance, making passkey sign-in possible on its platform using the browser-based desktop version of 1Password. Today, “1Password says it has seen passkey adoption surpass 700,000 on its platform, far exceeding its expectations for their growth this year,” according to TechRadar, which points out that the adoption rate more than doubles the company’s original projections.

“You can already save and sign in with passkeys using the desktop version of 1Password in the browser, as well as devices running iOS 17 and iPadOS 17,” 1Password writes in a blog post that lists GitHub, Shopify and WhatsApp among the platforms that have integrated the technology. “You can also use 1Password on any device to view, organize, and share your passkey logins,” according to the company.

“Launched initially as an initiative by Apple, Google and Microsoft, passkeys are consumerizing security standards such as FIDO and WebAuthn,” writes Forbes. Google has shared test results indicating “passkeys are ‘significantly faster than passwords’ to use, with an average of 14.9 seconds to sign into Google compared with 30.4 seconds for passwords,” Forbes reports.

Google — which in November launched its own passwordless Titan Security Keys — says “the percentage of users successfully authenticating through same device passkeys is 4x higher than the success rate typically achieved with passwords,” with about 63.8 percent for passkeys and 13.8 percent for passwords.

Last week, 1Password revealed “there are more than 100 registered websites, apps or services in its passkeys directory,” explains Forbes, including Adobe, Amazon, Nintendo, Nvidia, PayPal and Roblox among them.