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Google's most ridiculous trick to force users into adding phone number

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Google's most ridiculous trick to force users into adding phone number

#31

Post by [deleted] »

markdown wrote: post #13
jqpabc123 wrote: post #7

I guess I'll just have to stop using google. Welcome to the club. The fastest way to convince me *not* to use a product is to attach a "Google" label to it. Nothing Google has to offer justifies the drawbacks. NOTE: I do use an Android phone --- but only after it has been thoroughly de-Googled --- starting from a stripped down, bare metal device that won't even power up.

HN needs a bot that posts an inb4 comment every time there's a post about Google or a Google product. These predictable responses don't add any value whatsoever, and they're tiring to read.

[deleted]

Re: Google's most ridiculous trick to force users into adding phone number

#32

Post by worik »

markdown wrote: post #13
jqpabc123 wrote: post #7

I guess I'll just have to stop using google. Welcome to the club. The fastest way to convince me *not* to use a product is to attach a "Google" label to it. Nothing Google has to offer justifies the drawbacks. NOTE: I do use an Android phone --- but only after it has been thoroughly de-Googled --- starting from a stripped down, bare metal device that won't even power up.

HN needs a bot that posts an inb4 comment every time there's a post about Google or a Google product. These predictable responses don't add any value whatsoever, and they're tiring to read.

Pot meet kettle....

Re: Google's most ridiculous trick to force users into adding phone number

#33

Post by jjulius »

vort3 wrote: post #24
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #15

Every new feature from Google is a middle finger to their users, then you get some corporate double speak about how it's all well and good and how it makes the product better. Get a Fastmail account, I got one after I got tired of google breaking my IMAP settings every other week. They're cheap, they have most everything you'd need from an email provider, and they don't require a special app like proton.

I think if I'm gonna pay for using email, I'll just try to get any cheap VPS/domain and try to run my own email. It'll be more expensive for sure, but at least it will be my own thing I'm paying for.

Just depends whether or not the effort it takes to find a VPS company whose IPs aren't blocked by major email providers, and then ensuring that your emails continuously make it through to their destinations, is worth the cost savings.

I share your sentiment, but I opted for Fastmail because the effort wasn't worth the savings. YMMV, obviously.

Re: Google's most ridiculous trick to force users into adding phone number

#35

Post by leereeves »

vort3 wrote: post #24
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #15

Every new feature from Google is a middle finger to their users, then you get some corporate double speak about how it's all well and good and how it makes the product better. Get a Fastmail account, I got one after I got tired of google breaking my IMAP settings every other week. They're cheap, they have most everything you'd need from an email provider, and they don't require a special app like proton.

I think if I'm gonna pay for using email, I'll just try to get any cheap VPS/domain and try to run my own email. It'll be more expensive for sure, but at least it will be my own thing I'm paying for.

The problem with running your own email is getting past the spam filters.

The big email providers have basically built a walled garden around email by blocking anyone outside the garden as spam. They have no incentive to open the system to people who run their own email.

Re: Google's most ridiculous trick to force users into adding phone number

#37

Post by jqpabc123 »

bell-cot wrote: post #11
vort3 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you recommend me any real working website where I could buy cheap one time virtual number that could be used to enable 2FA for my account? And I hope they will never ever again ask me to confirm anything using that number.

Ah... I sense a very lucrative, low-ethics business model in providing "cheap one-time virtual [phone] numbers" to be used for security-sensitive purposes.

Unfortunately, others have already beat you to it.

For example, https://cheapglobalsms.com/

I went a slightly different route --- an old spare phone with Ultra Mobile PayGo prepaid SIM. For $3 per month you get 100 minutes of voice, 100 texts and 100 MB data per month.

The reason for this is that some security providers throw a little kink in the works by actually making a call to verify your number on sign-up.

Re: Google's most ridiculous trick to force users into adding phone number

#38

Post by ryantgtg »

QuikAccount wrote: post #25
jqpabc123 wrote: post #7

I guess I'll just have to stop using google. Welcome to the club. The fastest way to convince me *not* to use a product is to attach a "Google" label to it. Nothing Google has to offer justifies the drawbacks. NOTE: I do use an Android phone --- but only after it has been thoroughly de-Googled --- starting from a stripped down, bare metal device that won't even power up.

> NOTE: I do use an Android phone --- but only after it has been thoroughly de-Googled --- starting from a stripped down, bare metal device that won't even power up. You're going to have to explain to me. Particularly the "starting from a stripped down, bare metal device that won't even power up. Because this sounds excessive and a bit over the top.

Their device might have Google Smart Shellac on it, so this user chose to strip it off for the full De-Goog experience.

Re: Google's most ridiculous trick to force users into adding phone number

#39

Post by loosescrews »

vort3 wrote: post #6

It's not even about not willing to spend 1$ for a random phone number. Here's a list of things that are wrong with what Google does: - If you want to read your email, you have to use app specific password. I'm ok with that. - You can't generate app specific passwords if you don't have 2FA enabled. That's some artificial limitation made to force you into adding phone number to your account. - You can't use authenticat…

> You can't use authenticator app to enable 2FA

Are you sure about that? I don't think this is true. I definitely don't have a phone number linked to my Google Account and I have TOTP enabled as well. They even have the Advanced Protection mode which doesn't allow SMS or the authenticator app.

Really though, you should do the last thing. Buy some security keys and enable Advanced Protection.

Re: Google's most ridiculous trick to force users into adding phone number

#40

Post by nicce »

TheDong wrote: post #29

From your perspective, you're looking at a change that impacted you. From google's perspective, they're looking at a change which reduces phishing and scams by some small percent, and impacts a minuscule fraction of their users. Abuse, scams, phishing, and forgotten passwords are all significant problems which phone numbers help with. I'd be willing to bet these changes end up having an on net positive impact for goo…

Phone number is ultimate crossplatform and cross account identifier, only minority uses burner numbers for this. So I doubt that the phishing is the main driving motivation here, instead it is using phone numbers for easier tracking.
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