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PayPal; love it, or hate it. I had my troubles with the service in the past but have to acknowledge that it is one of the most popular online payment options thanks to its wide distribution.

PayPal customers who want to add that extra bit of security to their accounts can enable 2-step verification to protect logins against unauthorized access.

PayPal's been offering options to add a second layer of security to accounts since 2008 when it launched the PayPal Security Key feature. Security Key was a physical device that you could use to create a code that you had to enter to sign-in to PayPal accounts.

Options to sign-in using an app were introduced in 2014 with Symantec's VIP Access app that supported PayPal and other sites. Basically, what it did was generate a code that you had to enter.

The only other option that PayPal customers had up until now was to use SMS instead. PayPal would sent a code using SMS and that code had to be entered in a secondary step on the PayPal site to sign-in.

SMS has a few drawbacks: it is not particularly secure, you need a mobile connection, and it happens that messages take their time or vanish in Nirvana at times. Authenticator apps run locally on the device which means that code generation is instant and does not require a mobile connection or Internet connection.

You can still use SMS as a backup option on PayPal.