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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

#41

Post by kybernetikos »

sergiotapia wrote: post #26
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.

I bought Pixel phones for my wife and I because the price and ease of use to save my kids pictures was absolutely worth it. I haven't found a service that functions as well as Google Photos. She takes pics and I take pics, and we have a shared account that backs it all up without any messing about. I have done precisely ZERO tech support for my wife since buying this service and phones and I will probably never leave…

I have a system involving syncthing fork set up on my families phones and computers. I have to admit it was fiddly to set up but it has run very smoothly with no maintainence since then.

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

#42

Post by Dylan16807 »

worik wrote: post #32
markdown wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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....

Once you're in the pit of bad comments, you might as well try to discourage the original problem.

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

#43

Post by xg15 »

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…

> How many phishers do you think will be stopped by removing an insecure login flow? How many people do you think want to use insecure apps, but don't have a phone number and refuse to login to their google account on their phone?

I actually don't know. Do you have any numbers?

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

#44

Post by HWR_14 »

sergiotapia wrote: post #26
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.

I bought Pixel phones for my wife and I because the price and ease of use to save my kids pictures was absolutely worth it. I haven't found a service that functions as well as Google Photos. She takes pics and I take pics, and we have a shared account that backs it all up without any messing about. I have done precisely ZERO tech support for my wife since buying this service and phones and I will probably never leave…

Have you thought about an Apple iCloud family accounts?

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

#45

Post by momirlan »

mxuribe wrote: post #16

So, at what point will there be a legitimate third option other than Google android phones (and associated ecosystem) and Apple iphones (and associatyed ecosystem)??? And, no, i don't mean rooting a phone, etc. to install Lineage or other alternative operating systems on it. I mean, i want to go out, buy a phone that is decent enough for the basics of what i need to do and is de-googled...not too crazy expensive like…

nokia 3220

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

#46

Post by nagisa »

loosescrews wrote: post #39
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.

Google used to give more options before. Today if you want to set-up 2FA you must either give them a phone number or use a phone.

Only then you can add other authentication methods (this a hardware key) and remove your phone as an option.

Source: went through this nonsense a couple years ago and then again a couple months ago with a different account.

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

#47

Post by walrus01 »

the thing about 'adding a phone number' is that hijacking somebody's DID is fairly trivial these days for a good social engineer, you get the customer service department at somebody's cellular carrier to port out the number, or activate it on a new SIM card put into a burner.

the SS7/PSTN is horribly broken.

SMS based "2FA" is not actual 2FA

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

#48

Post by drivebycomment »

> TL:DR; You can't use «less secure» apps (apps other than official gmail app) to sync emails if you don't want to link your account to your phone number or add google account to your phone.

Not true in multiple ways.

"Less secure apps" are ones that don't support OAuth. There are plenty of third party email apps that are not considered "less secure apps". E.g Thunderbird or Outlook, or iOS Mail work perfectly fine, as many others.

You can use u2f keys as second factors and don't need to add your phone number as a second factor nor as a recovery phone, as my Google account.

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

#49

Post by 29athrowaway »

sergiotapia wrote: post #26
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.

I bought Pixel phones for my wife and I because the price and ease of use to save my kids pictures was absolutely worth it. I haven't found a service that functions as well as Google Photos. She takes pics and I take pics, and we have a shared account that backs it all up without any messing about. I have done precisely ZERO tech support for my wife since buying this service and phones and I will probably never leave…

Amazon Photos

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

#50

Post by tpoacher »

I'm not too keen on mandatory 2fa via phone. we need something simpler, like, dunno, some sort of chip on our hands or foreheads perhaps? /s

on a serious note, it's annoying how fundamentalists eventually keep getting shit right because of idiots in power fulfilling their prophecies (daniel sloss had a nice comedy skit on this)

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