I’ve noticed that the Authenticator App is being phased out, and instead we’re to use the Battlenet net App. The change will become mandatory in the near future.
I appreciate this will be handy for people who like to stay signed into the Battlenet app on their phones, but for the rest of us it means extra steps when authenticating as we’ll need to sign into the app each time, then sign out again.
What would be really handy is to be able to add Battlenet to the MS Authenticator app or Google Authenticator app (as is possible with many 3rd parties, some of whom require much stricter security than Blizz). Any chance this can happen?
The Authenticator app is pretty passive, will use minimal battery and doesn’t show any on-line presence info to other users. I’m already using MS Authenticator app so changing would actually remove an app from my phone, rather than adding a more power-hungry and data-gathery one.
The old Authenticator app does not requires use of a Blizzard authenticator upon login. It’s replacement, however, does. Imagine having to keep the old app just for being able to log into the new one…
On top of that, the new app logs in using the phone’s default browser, and if that browser is something else than Google Chrome on Android - the login will fail. I dunno if the devs are bliztarded, or get paid by Google to only allow Chrome as a login gateway.
Not just power, though my phone is getting old so I like to keep stuff off it unless I need it.
It’s more a matter of principle - authentication is a simple task and doesn’t need an app like Battlenet. I don’t want to stay signed into it all the time, which is sensible given the many times big tech companies have failed to limit their data gathering activities. If Blizz doesn’t want to support two apps, that’s fine - just let me use MS Authenticator like most everyone else does.
I think the reason they merged the functions is so that you don’t need three bnet apps to get everything. I can see it made sense to merge the authentication feature into Bnet instead of it being standalone.
WoW Companion is still separate and tbh I don’t even know why I still have it. I never use it. Tbh this discussion has inspired me to just uninstall that one
The phone app keeps you logged in by default. A good chunk of my friends can be seen online when they aren’t playing the game because of the phone app.
Many also have the desktop app to launch on startup of PC so they show online too without being in any games.
I have never explored the settings in the app because it’s never been an issue. But clearly some are finding it an issue. I think people would probably have to look at the app settings for Battle.net on their phone.
Bit OT; but the Launcher on PC keeps requiring me to relog whenever I boot/wake up my PC despite having Remember email and keep logged in enabled… gets annoying.
As for the authenticator, I’m hardly ever asked for it and don’t have the app. I’m happy about this as it means I rarely have to use my physical authenticator which is all I want. I’m fed up with the ‘everything must be on your phone’ mentality nowadays
If you have “old” phones still lying around and a wireless network you can use those for authenticators. Doesn’t matter if it’s not connected to the mobile network after all, it just needs an internet connection. And if you only use that spare phone for authenticators it’ll hardly need charging very often and it can just lie there as a somewhat big clunky physical authenticator.
