All cheap smartphones have a fingerprint sensor but all laptops dont have one. Why?

RickAstleyfounddead@lemy.lol to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 93 points –

All cheap smartphones have a fingerprint sensor but all laptops dont have one. Is it because of security concerns or spacing reasons?

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Because you very rarely need to actually log in on your laptop. You lock and open your phone dozens of times per day, but you'll probably log in once or twice on your laptop and that's it. It's not a feature many people would care about.

I always lock my computer when I walk away from it so my dog can't start hacking the CIA.

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I unlock my 1Password vault(s) with fingerprint, so it’s much more useful than just logging into the laptop. which at work I log into many more times a day than once or twice.

I use the TouchID on my MacBook several times a day because it unlocks the password manager and wallet.

If you have an Apple Watch you don’t even need to do that. 😂 but yeah it’s great having a fingerprint scanner on a computer

I lock my computer whenever I leave my desk.

"Rarely?" This is anecdotally very false, and I don't think I'm that much of an outlier. Do you have stats on that?

True for personal laptops, false for professional laptops. Might be why they gave me one with a fingerprint reader.

I unlock my work laptop a dozen times a day at least. Facial recognition FTW for that. TBH I've never felt the need to set up my fingerprint though...

Most work laptops I've seen use smart cards for this. The computer is locked unless your card is inserted and a PIN is entered, and removing the card locks the computer.

What country and industry do you work in? I’ve never even heard of that much less seen it in a professional capacity.

I’m in the US working for a company that uses smart card plus PIN for login, then everything else is automatic SSO using those credentials.

Honestly works amazingly.

Where I work we use passwords but I'm in the trial for Windows hello for business.

I do know though that smart cards are very common in the healthcare industry. I know that the police also use it.

We use Windows Hello PINs. Great when you have a 10-key (numpad) built into the laptop. Too bad it takes forever to wake. God I wish I had any MacBook.

Like wake from sleep? My work laptop wakes very quickly from sleep. I just touch my finger on the fingerprint reader and it wakes unlocked in just a few seconds. It's a Dell latitude 5430

that's really weird. I worked in healthcare and literally never saw that once.. that was a decade ago now, but still.

A lot of modern places use shibboleth and 2FA keys these days, but the military still uses smart card authentication

As a student, I unlock my laptop several times per day.

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