I switched jobs last month and decided to audit all my personal stuff while the old place was auditing all the work accounts I left behind. We'd been using google/gmail 2 factor authentication.

There's a few layers to it, most everyone has seen. Ok, 1st factor is your password, so you log in with your password.

2nd factor can vary - a list of codes you print and keep in your wallet, or they can send a txt message to your phone. Or you can get an authenticator app, which you configure with some magical seed value, and then you have what's effectively a software RSA token device on your phone.

Even easier? I just found out about these FIDO usb hardware keys. 9 bucks, wait for it in the mail... go to your gmail account settings, click the link, put the hardware key in, press the button... and that's it, from then on you can plug that key into a web browser (chrome, actually) and it will pass the second factor. Anyways, it's been out for a while, but I just found out about it, and it's so easy to do I wanted to jot a note down here.