Dashlane has been making a hard push to get users away from using the company’s desktop app and into using the individual browser extensions. The process requires moving all of the features from the app to the extensions, which is still a work in progress to this very day. Some of the more advanced options are a bit of a challenge since many browsers are still working on offering native support for them. One of these is biometric access.
It doesn’t help that “not all browsers are created equal” when it comes to their individual dev kits and the overall access that developers have to various options and features. This makes it hard for companies to jump right into complex features within browser extensions.
Thankfully, the light is starting to shine at the end of the tunnel for Dashlane. The company has enabled biometrics within Chromium-based web browsers (assuming your system supports it). This means the Dashlane extension within Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge can use your fingerprint instead of having to enter your master password every time you want to unlock the extension. This is way more user-friendly and it can allow you to strengthen your master password some more since you won’t have to be manually entering it all the time.
Simply open the app settings within Chrome or Edge, head to “My Account” and look for “Security settings in the right menu that pops up. From there, simply slide the switch to the on position for “Biometric unlock” and it will walk you through a few steps to get it locked in.
Of course, you have to have biometric access enabled within your computer (ie, set up within Windows Hello with a supported fingerprint reader). Without this, you wouldn’t have access to this feature. Thankfully, fingerprint readers are more than affordable now. For example, you can check out our story on the one from Kensington.
The feature will be moving to Firefox next. However, the company has stated there is currently a bug in the browser that is preventing the feature for the moment. Once Mozilla gets around to squashing this bug, Dashlane will be able to move forward with Firefox.
Now Dashalne simply has to figure out what to do with the VPN controls for accounts that feature it, as well as a number of odd features here and there.
