Securing Gmail (Updated)

Coding Horror, Make Your Email Hacker Proof has lots of good advice about how to secure your Gmail account.

This is all good advice, even if two-factor authentication is not a panacea.

Plus, when you print out that last-ditch backup paper to put in your wallet…don’t label it. Why make it easy for the guy who steals your wallet?

Update: A friend writes,

I followed the instructions, first on the desktop.

Then, it locked out my Gmail account on my iPhone, because I need to do one more step since smartphones “apps” cannot ask for verification, only a password.

(That part is missing in this “Coding Error – Make your Email Hacker Proof” article because it is only for the desktop. If you use Gmail also on your mobile device, you need to do the below):

So I read further and found that you need to the 2 step authoriztion by following these steps (watch the video).

This gives you a long “application specific password” which is different from your password you use when you login to Gmail from a browser on a desktop (not your mobile device). You only need to type it in once.

Now my Gmail works on my iPhone. Terrific!

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