Enable webauthn API by default

Hi,

I’m working for a company developing a web application using the Webauthn API.

The Webauthn API is now supported by all major browsers, but for Samsung Internet it must first be explicitly enabled via internet://flags .

Because the setting is located in internet://flags, it is listed under a warning explaining that changing these settings may be detrimental to the user’s security and/or privacy - This does not exactly inspire confidence for our users.
It is unfortunately easier to tell our Samsung Internet users to change their default browser to some other browser than having them mess around in developer settings menus.

My question is:
Do you plan on enabling the Webauthn API by default anytime soon, or will we have to ask our dear Samsung Internet users to migrate to other browsers in order to use our application?

I don’t know the scale required for you to prioritize certain issues, but for reference we’re talking somewhere around 1 million Samsung Internet users who would be highly incentivized to leave Samsung Internet in 2022 due to the application’s central position in national infrastructure.

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+1 for that request. WebAuthn supportin Samsung Internet is behind a flag for a long time now and it is supported by default by most other Browsers today.

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Hello @tarald.riise,

We are very sorry to hear about your inconvenience. We are still communicating with the relevant development team about your query and will get back to you as soon as we have any new updates. Thank you again for your patience.

Best Regards,
Shuvo
Samsung Developer Program

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Hey @shuvo.saha!

My company also uses the Webauthn API to authenticate users without a password.
We have a lot of users who use Samsung Internet Browser and unfortunately they don’t have any technology background so they aren’t aware of the option to pull up this configuration.

For us, this is huge. It will make the internet safer together and let us give users better UX.

Please update the thread when you hear back from the developers.

Cheers,

Tal

Hi folks - I can confirm we are definitely working towards getting this out from behind a flag and into a stable version. However I’m afraid I can’t commit to target version/date at this point. Hope to be able to provide more info in due course.

Dan Appelquist
Head of Developer Relations, Samsung Internet

2 Likes

Hi @Torgo , is there an ETA yet for the flag-less WebAuthN support?

Thanks!

Samsung Internet Beta 17.0.0.43 now enables WebAuthn support by default.

We’ve recently identified users on Samsung browsers getting stuck in a webauthn enrollment process on PublicKeyCredential.isUserVerifyingPlatformAuthenticatorAvailable(). We are awaiting the promise, but it never seems to return.

Seeing this a lot on Samsung Browser 20. Are there still settings the user has to enable before WebAuthn will work?

@Torgo