Your Google Account allows you to create passkeys on your phone, computer and security keys


Last year, Google launched passkey support for Google Accounts. Passkeys are a new industry standard that give users an easy, highly secure way to sign-in to apps and websites. Today, we announced that passkeys have been used to authenticate users more than 1 billion times across over 400 million Google Accounts.




As more users encounter passkeys, we’re often asked questions about how they relate to security keys, how Google Workspace administrators can configure passkeys for the user accounts that they manage, and how they relate to the Advanced Protection Program (APP). This post will seek to clarify these topics.




Passkeys and security keys

Passkeys are an evolution of security keys, meaning users get the same security benefits, but with a much simplified experience. Passkeys can be used in the Google Account sign-in process in many of the same ways that security keys have been used in the past — in fact, you can now choose to store your passkey on your security key. This provides users with three key benefits:




  • Stronger security. Users typically authenticate with passkeys by entering their device’s screen lock PIN, or using a biometric authentication method, like a fingerprint or a face scan. By storing the passkey on a security key, users can ensure that passkeys are only available when the security key is plugged into their device, creating a stronger security posture.


  • Flexible portability. Today, users rely on password managers to make passkeys available across all of their devices. Security keys provide an alternate way to use your passkeys across your devices: by bringing your security keys with you.


  • Simpler sign-in. Passkeys can act as a first- and second-factor, simultaneously. By creating a passkey on your security key, you can skip entering your password. This replaces your remotely stored password with the PIN you used to unlock your security key, which improves user security. (If you prefer to continue using your password in addition to using a passkey, you can turn off Skip password when possible in your Google Account security settings.)




Passkeys bring strong and phishing-resistant authentication technology to a wider user base, and we’re excited to offer this new way for passkeys to meet more user needs.




Google Workspace admins have additional controls and choice

Google Workspace accounts have a domain level “Allow users to skip passwords at sign-in by using passkeys” setting which is off by default, and overrides the corresponding user-level configuration. This retains the need for a user’s password in addition to presenting a passkey. Admins can also change that setting and allow users to sign-in with just a passkey.




When the domain-level setting is off, end users will still see a “use a security key” button on their “passkeys and security keys” page, which will attempt to enroll any security key for use as a second factor only. This action will not require the user to set up a PIN for their security key during registration. This is designed to give enterprise customers who have deployed legacy security keys additional time to make the change to passkeys, with or without a password.




Passkeys for Advanced Protection Program (APP) users

Since the introduction of passkeys in 2023, users enrolled in APP have been able to add any passkey to their account and use it to sign in. However users are still required to present two security keys when enrolling into the program. We will be updating the enrollment process soon to enable a user with any passkey to enroll in APP. By allowing any passkey to be used (rather than only hardware security keys) we expect to reach more high risk users who need advanced protection, while maintaining phishing-resistant authentication.

Chrome Stable for iOS Update

Hi everyone! We've just released Chrome Stable 124 (124.0.6367.111) for iOS; it'll become available on App Store in the next few hours.

This release includes stability and performance improvements. You can see a full list of the changes in the Git log. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug.

Erhu Akpobaro
Google Chrome

Available in open beta: Build AppSheet automations using Google Forms

This announcement was part of Google Cloud Next ‘24. Visit the Workspace Blog to learn more about the next wave of innovations in Workspace, including enhancements to Gemini for Google Workspace.


What’s changing

AppSheet helps users automate manual workflows by integrating with data sources like Google Drive and Sheets, and today we’re excited to announce its integration with another data collection tool in Workspace: Google Forms.


Many companies rely on the data collected via form submissions when they are performing tasks for ticketing or incident reporting. However, prior to today you could only view information from form submissions via email, spreadsheet or in the Forms app itself. 


With this update, Google Forms submissions can act as event triggers within AppSheet Automations. These automations can then take many different actions, such as sending notifications or approval requests to Gmail or Google Chat, or even calling a custom Apps Script function. 
Build AppSheet automations using Google Forms is now available in beta


Who’s impacted 

Admins, end users and developers 


Why you’d use it 

This integration enables users to receive actionable notifications based on responses to Google Forms.


Getting started 

  • Admins: 
    • AppSheet admins can use AppSheet’s Policy Engine to control access to this feature by App Creators in their organization. Visit the Help Center to learn more about policy enforcement in AppSheet policies and specific guidance on preventing app creators from using Google Forms
    • This feature is available as an open beta, which means AppSheet app creators can use it without enrolling in a specific beta program. 
  • Developers and end users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about building automations using Google Forms. 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

Available for Google Workspace: 
  • Business Starter, Standard, Plus 
  • Enterprise Standard, Plus 
  • Enterprise Essentials Plus 
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus and the Teaching & Learning Upgrade 
  • Frontline Starter, Standard 
  • AppSheet Starter, Core, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus 

Resources 

Stable Channel Update for ChromeOS / ChromeOS Flex

Hello All,

The Stable channel is being updated to 124.0.6367.95 (Platform version: 15823.40.0) for most ChromeOS devices and will be rolled out over the next few days.

If you find new issues, please let us know one of the following ways:

Interested in switching channels? Find out how.

Google ChromeOS.

Google Summer of Code 2024 accepted contributors announced!


We are celebrating our 20th anniversary of Google Summer of Code (GSoC) and we are thrilled to announce the new 1,220 Contributors that will be writing code for 195 open source mentoring organizations starting May 27. Over the last few weeks, our mentoring organizations have read through applications, had discussions with applicants, and made the difficult decision of selecting the GSoC Contributors they will be mentoring this summer.

Highlighting significant results from this year’s application period:

    • 43,984 applicants from 172 countries
    • 9,107 proposals submitted by 6,518 applicants
    • 1,220 GSoC contributors accepted from 73 countries
    • Over 2,800 mentors and organization administrators
    • 34 mentoring organizations are participating in their 16th-20th GSoC!

Starting today, our GSoC 2024 Contributors will actively engage with their new open source community and become familiar with their organizations during the Community Bonding period. Mentors will guide the GSoC Contributors through documentation and introduce them to community norms and processes while helping plan their milestones and projects for the summer. Coding begins May 27th and while most folks will wrap up September 2nd, GSoC Contributors have the opportunity to request a longer coding period and wrap up their projects between early September and early November based on their schedules and availability.

We’d like to express our gratitude to the thousands of applicants who took the time and effort to reach out to our mentoring organizations and submit proposals this year. The experience of researching, asking questions and becoming more familiar with open source communities has hopefully helped you feel excited about open source and maybe you found a great community that you want to contribute to outside of Google Summer of Code! Communication is key to GSoC and open source, and staying connected with the community or reaching out to other organizations is an exceptional way to set the stage for future opportunities. Open source communities are always looking for new and eager collaborators to join their projects.

A huge thank you to all of our mentors and organization administrators who make this program so special and impactful for thousands of developers each year. Google Summer of Code continues because of the dedication of mentors to keep the open source ecosystem thriving by supporting new developers and their exciting perspectives and ideas. Google is honored to support the open source ecosystem (and 1,000+ open source projects and 20,000+ developers) over these past 20 years.

GSoC Contributors — have fun this summer, keep learning and enjoy becoming part of the open source community! Your mentors and community members have dozens, and in some cases hundreds, of years of combined experience so let them share their knowledge with you to help you become phenomenal open source contributors.

By Stephanie Taylor – Program Lead and Lucila Ortiz – Program Administrator

Google Ads API Resource Usage Policy Update

What's changing?

We are updating the Google Ads API resource usage policy to throttle GoogleAdsService.Search and GoogleAdsService.SearchStream query patterns that consume excessive amounts of API resources. If a particular query pattern is throttled, other services, methods, and query patterns will continue to work unaffected.

Starting the week of June 17, 2024, and only for the throttled query patterns, requests will be affected as follows:

  • If you use version v16 or older of the API, you will receive a QuotaError.RESOURCE_TEMPORARILY_EXHAUSTED error.
  • If you use version v17 or later of the API, you will receive a QuotaError.EXCESSIVE_SHORT_TERM_QUERY_RESOURCE_CONSUMPTION or QuotaError.EXCESSIVE_LONG_TERM_QUERY_RESOURCE_CONSUMPTION, depending on whether the excessive resource consumption was for a short period of time (a few minutes), or a long period of time.

To help you identify and monitor your expensive reports, we will also return a cost metric for individual reports. To view the cost for successful reports, see the following fields:

Why this change?

We are making this change to preserve the reliability and stability of the API.

What do I need to do?

Before June 17, 2024, update your applications to do the following:

  • Handle the new error codes when making GoogleAdsService::Search or GoogleAdsService::SearchStream calls
    • If you use version v16 or earlier of the Google Ads API, then handle QuotaError.RESOURCE_TEMPORARILY_EXHAUSTED errors.
    • If you use version v17 or later of the API, handle the QuotaError.EXCESSIVE_SHORT_TERM_QUERY_RESOURCE_CONSUMPTION and QuotaError.EXCESSIVE_LONG_TERM_QUERY_RESOURCE_CONSUMPTION errors.
    • If one or more of your reporting query patterns are throttled, you should review and fix the query pattern. Here are some ways to improve query performance:
    • Run the query less frequently.
    • Use a less expensive query pattern or view.

To learn more about optimizing your queries, see manage data efficiency.

  • [Optional] Incorporate the new query_resource_consumption metric into your monitoring systems to detect and handle new expensive queries.

How to get help

If you have any questions about this change or need help optimizing specific query patterns, check out the Google Ads API support page for options.

Get ready for Google I/O: Program lineup revealed

Posted by Timothy Jordan – Director, Developer Relations and Open Source

Developers, get ready! Google I/O is just around the corner, kicking off live from Mountain View with the Google keynote on Tuesday, May 14 at 10 am PT, followed by the Developer keynote at 1:30 pm PT.

But the learning doesn’t stop there. Mark your calendars for May 16 at 8 am PT when we’ll be releasing over 150 technical deep dives, demos, codelabs, and more on-demand. If you register online, you can start building your 'My I/O' agenda today.

Here's a sneak peek at some of the exciting highlights from the I/O program preview:

Unlocking the power of AI: The Gemini era unlocks a new frontier for developers. We'll showcase the newest features in the Gemini API, Google AI Studio, and Gemma. Discover cutting-edge pre-trained models from Kaggle, and delve into Google's open-source libraries like Keras and JAX.

Android: A developer's playground: Get the latest updates on everything Android! We'll cover groundbreaking advancements in generative AI, the highly anticipated Android 15, innovative form factors, and the latest tools and libraries in the Jetpack and Compose ecosystem. Plus, discover how to optimize performance and streamline your development workflow.

Building beautiful and functional web experiences: We’ll cover Baseline updates, a revolutionary tool that empowers developers with a clear understanding of web features and API interoperability. With Baseline, you'll have access to real-time information on popular developer resource sites like MDN, Can I Use, and web.dev.

The future of ChromeOS: Get a glimpse into the exciting future of ChromeOS. We'll discuss the developer-centric investments we're making in distribution, app capabilities, and operating system integrations. Discover how our partners are shaping the future of Chromebooks and delivering world-class user experiences.

This is just a taste of what's in store at Google I/O. Stay tuned for more updates, and get ready to be a part of the future.

Don't forget to mark your calendars and register for Google I/O today!

Get ready for Google I/O: Program lineup revealed


Developers, get ready! Google I/O is just around the corner, kicking off live from Mountain View with the Google keynote on Tuesday, May 14 at 10 am PT, followed by the Developer keynote at 1:30 pm PT.

But the learning doesn’t stop there. Mark your calendars for May 16 at 8 am PT when we’ll be releasing over 150 technical deep dives, demos, codelabs, and more on-demand. If you register online, you can start building your 'My I/O' agenda today.

Here's a sneak peek at some of the exciting highlights from the I/O program preview:

Unlocking the power of AI: The Gemini era unlocks a new frontier for developers. We'll showcase the newest features in the Gemini API, Google AI Studio, and Gemma. Discover cutting-edge pre-trained models from Kaggle, and delve into Google's open-source libraries like Keras and JAX.

Android: A developer's playground: Get the latest updates on everything Android! We'll cover groundbreaking advancements in generative AI, the highly anticipated Android 15, innovative form factors, and the latest tools and libraries in the Jetpack and Compose ecosystem. Plus, discover how to optimize performance and streamline your development workflow.

Building beautiful and functional web experiences: We’ll cover Baseline updates, a revolutionary tool that empowers developers with a clear understanding of web features and API interoperability. With Baseline, you'll have access to real-time information on popular developer resource sites like MDN, Can I Use, and web.dev.

The future of ChromeOS: Get a glimpse into the exciting future of ChromeOS. We'll discuss the developer-centric investments we're making in distribution, app capabilities, and operating system integrations. Discover how our partners are shaping the future of Chromebooks and delivering world-class user experiences.

This is just a taste of what's in store at Google I/O. Stay tuned for more updates, and get ready to be a part of the future.

Don't forget to mark your calendars and register for Google I/O today!

Posted by Timothy Jordan – Director, Developer Relations and Open Source