21–30 of 484 posts
Can anyone suggest what a good alternative to Gmail would be for this population?
It looks like the librarian's letter is from July 2021. So, the frustrated librarian raised this issue more than a year ago. Has GOOG done anything about it in the past year? There needs to be a better way.
It's not just a GOOG problem. In fact, Yahoo makes me want to show up and yell at some business people: They lock people out of their accounts and then CHARGE THEM TO CALL IN and fix it. Another general issue is how much of this population uses/sticks with old products: There is a large number of Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail addresses still being used, as well as old ISP mailboxes.
About a decade ago, a broken iPhone caused me to experience how bad Google's MFA reset process was — there were multiple _years_ where the “hard landing” form triggered a flow which sent an email to an internal mailbox which didn't exist! — and while I was able to use printed backup codes after I returned home the experience left me concerned enough that I went to one of their identity group's public meetings here in…
Someone needs to tell this librarian Google has 2FA backup codes you can just write on a piece of paper.
Google has basically made 2FA mandatory if you have set-up an Android phone, which doesn't even prompt to back up recovery codes.
Librarians rock. There's even a show about them[0], Starring Number One.
I can't access the gMail account I set up, because I made a mistake, when setting the password, and did not save the one I used.
It will not allow me to access the account I set up.
After a while, I just gave up. I am satisfied that someone can't use my gMail address to impersonate me (because even I can't get it). I have plenty of other eMail accounts.
Someone needs to tell this librarian Google has 2FA backup codes you can just write on a piece of paper.
About a decade ago, a broken iPhone caused me to experience how bad Google's MFA reset process was — there were multiple _years_ where the “hard landing” form triggered a flow which sent an email to an internal mailbox which didn't exist! — and while I was able to use printed backup codes after I returned home the experience left me concerned enough that I went to one of their identity group's public meetings here in…
I still love libraries and the services they provide. But wouldn't want them to be an arbiter of identity any more than a faceless, human hostile corporation.
Another solution to this problem would be competition. If there were a workable alternative to Gmail that had account recovery mechanisms better suited for this population than the librarian could simply recommend that for their patrons. Can anyone suggest what a good alternative to Gmail would be for this population?
Another solution to this problem would be competition. If there were a workable alternative to Gmail that had account recovery mechanisms better suited for this population than the librarian could simply recommend that for their patrons. Can anyone suggest what a good alternative to Gmail would be for this population?