Passkeys — a secure way to login to accounts without passwords — are back in the news as a bevy of companies lend their support to the cryptographic technology. Windows 11, GitHub and Nintendo are among the latest to go passwordless. The standard, which began gaining momentum last year, has also been embraced by companies including Apple, Google, the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium. Each passkey involves two keys — one public and registered with an online service or app, and one private and stored on individual devices, like smartphones or computers.

“You can find a list of websites that support passkeys over on Passkeys.io,” writes ZDNet, noting that “well-known websites and apps that support the technology include Adobe, Google, PayPal, TikTok, Nintendo and GitHub.”

Passkey tech is “designed to be easy to use,” ZDNet adds, explaining that “to log in with a passkey you’ll be using your face, a fingerprint, or a PIN in much the same way that you unlock your smartphone” with “no passwords in sight. Nothing that needs to be remembered, and nothing to accidentally hand over to a hacker.”

The popular password manager 1Password, “is finally rolling out support for passkeys,” writes Engadget of the login app, which it says has been beta testing passkeys with users since June. To use 1Password’s passkeys on a desktop device, users must “download the 1Password extension, which works with Chrome and Safari, as well as some less popular browsers.”

Engadget says Firefox is not presently supported, but says the tech is “coming soon.”

At its recent Surface event, Microsoft said as the result of its work with the FIDO Alliance the past few years “Windows 11 users will soon be able to take better advantage of passkeys” for websites and apps, according to TechCrunch, which writes that “once the expanded passkeys support rolls out, Windows 11 users will be able to create a passkey using Windows Hello, Windows’ biometric identity and access control feature.”

In a blog post, Microsoft calls passkeys “the cross-platform, cross-ecosystem future of accessing websites and applications.”

TechCrunch also says GitHub “is formally launching its passkeys security feature into general availability, two months after first debuting it in beta.”

Nintendo is another recent devotee, creating “a passwordless sign-in method that uses your fingerprint, face scan, or other methods to give you access to your online accounts,” per The Verge, which says the gaming giant only supports passkeys “on devices with iOS 16 or later, iPadOS 16 or later, macOS 13 or later, and Android 9 or later” and will allow registration of up to “10 different passkeys to your Nintendo account.”

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