how to use google authenticator for facebook’s two-step authentication

in a world where more and more of our personal life is taking place on the web, a strong password is the very least you can do to keep your stuff safe from others.
about a year after an online journalist had his entire digital life deleted by hackers, many online services including google, facebook, dropbox, and lately even apple, microsoft and twitter, have implemented two-step authentication (or two-factor verification). this means that there’s an optional, extra step that you can activate to verify your identity during login – using a special, variable code that’s e.g. time-coded or individually texted to you.

if you don’t have two-step authentication activated for your email, online banking, google account, apple ID, and even your social media accounts, you should do so right now.

now, if you’d like to have all your two-step verification codes available from within one app (e.g. google authenticator), facebook is the one service that doesn’t seem to offer this feature. instead, they point you to their own facebook app, where they’ve hidden a similar feature somewhere in the menu.
it is still possible to use another app, though, and goran tepshic show’s you how it’s done:

• go to facebook’s “account settings” page, using the little gear in the top right corner. navigate to “security”, “login approvals” and activate the checkbox labeled “require me to enter a security code each time…”.
  
• click “get started”, choose your phone’s software platform, and “continue”.
• the next window will tell you how to get verification codes from within the facebook app. ignore this, and click “having trouble?” instead.
  
• clicking on “get key” will get you the key needed to generate verification codes with google authenticator (or other apps).
  
• now, head over to google authenticator, tap on “menu”, “set up account” and “enter key provided”. choose a name and enter the code.
• facebook will ask you to confirm that everything’s set up correctly by entering your verification code. done.