I decided to update my password for my Gmail account. I did it on my laptop computer. So now I get to work and try signing in on my phone. I enter my new password, and I get a screen that basically says ok, thanks but now scan this QR code to prove it’s you and a QR code appears on my screen. WTF?
My real question here is: can I read this QR code on my phone screen with this same phone?
Other questions I have are, If my password isn’t enough, what good is it? If someone steals my phone and somehow has my password, can’t they just scan the QR code too?
This shit drives me crazy. Yes, I’m old and have trouble keeping up with technology.
That’s something we have to remind our clients occasionally. You don’t want to put QR codes on anything that’s only going to be viewed online. Print ads and PPT presentations, knock yourselves out.
One of our Asian copy writers showed an analysis of how southeast Asians use the Internet. There’s four times as many Smartphone users as PC users because a) it’s cheaper, b) they spend a lot of time commuting, and c) they prefer scanning QR codes for instant results.
Can you elaborate? I saved it to photos, opened in google lens and it gave me this very long string of numbers - none of which were my password. Now what? When I get back to that page it generates a new QR code.
All a QR code does is send you to a webpage. Tapping it in Google Lens should have taken you there.Can you copy the string of numbers and paste it into a browser?
Yeah, a QR code is usually used to hold a URL, but it can conceivably have any sort of information in it. I remember around a decade ago when they were still a novelty, people were putting all kinds of things in them; contact info, a short story, etc. Over time people realized that it makes more sense to put a URL in them, and then the web site can have all kinds of content on it, so that has become the most common use for them (and when you see random QR codes on things, you should expect them to be URLs). But they can say just about anything.
On my iPhone, there is a little bubble in the bottom-left corner showing the most recent picture I took. I found a screenshot of the app online where you can see it, again, it’s on the bottom-left corner.
So, I guess you’d still see a tiny version of the QR code; you might be able to zoom in on it enough for the phone to pick it up.
Apparently whatever is on the QR code is required for verification. So once I follow the instructions on that video and get that “info”, then go back to the verification screen, it generates a new QR code. It does that every time I leave the verification page and return.
If it’s just a long string of numbers, and not a URL, then you probably need to scan the QR code in a very specific app. I see this for security things, like scanning a QR code on the Google messages website with the Google messages app in order to login to Google messages. I’ve also seen this with Steam desktop and the Steam phone app, or when logging into Netflix on a TV.
If that’s the case, then you’ve probably somehow ended up at the desktop gmail site, or something, where it thinks you’ll have a phone also logged into that Google account to use to verify it’s you.
Usually there will be something to click that says “try another method to authenticate” or something like that, and it will send you a text.
