geteilt von: https://lemmy.ml/post/38682476
(translated) Everyone has a phone. Whether it’s an iPhone, where you can’t install a better YouTube Music client without ads, or an Android, where you have pre-installed apps from three different manufacturers plus ads for new phones popping up as notifications. Anyone who reads my articles regularly knows what I’m talking about. Today, after a very long time, we’re going to review a phone from Google, on which I installed GrapheneOS.
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I don’t get why banking apps are such a difficult deal-killer for people. Banks have web sites. But also, what are people doing? Running their bank app to daily transfer money back and forth from/to checking and savings?
My country’s gov has a 2FA app to authenticate logins for public services, check digital IDs and pay taxes. No web version for that. Local banks also use that system to validate your KYC so you need to have it on your phone anyway.
All of my banks are neobanks except my savings account, so also no web banking there. These banks have several “pots” which you can use to divide your money (bills, holidays, use later, etc) so the interactions with these apps are pretty much daily. I also don’t like to have too much money readily available so that in case of my card being cloned, the hackers won’t be able to take more than 100 euros from me.
There are also public bikes that are free to use but require a specific app that for some reason didn’t work at all on my GrapheneOS install (I think due to Google Play Services seeing my Os is not signed by Google). I’ve also had issues in the past in a city where you could clock in and out of the metro station using an app, but I couldn’t use it because of GrapheneOSs strong anti-tracking features. Had to fork out extra money every time because paying for the metro through the machine would force me to charge at least 10€ at a time while the app would take the exact money due from my account if I used it…
So yes, 1 inconvenience at a time is how these alternatives OSes become major PsITA to use. It’s not just the banks, it’s also the obscure local apps that are necessary to live a normal life. If you have free time to search for alternatives or don’t mind the extra work then it’s probably fine, but when you have a job and need things to just work then it becomes really jarring to use. Just my opinion.
The banking apps I’m talking about will fail to run on GrapheneOS if they detect they were downloaded from Aurora Store, even if you’re using an OEM-locked device with GFS installed btw. They also require your device to have Google Play Protect certification.
On top, it’s a standard protocol for all banking apps that I use to block any new ip you login into for more than 24 hrs unless it was a pre-trusted phone device. for that unfortunatelly, it is a deal killer that I’d have no way of accessing money when travelling abroad, which is something I do 30+ times a year :(
Good luck setting up N26 (German neobank) account on GrapheneOS. It just doesn’t work. Revolut works great though.
So have their own two factor authentication applications
I wanna discuss with you, because this is exactly what I thought… I’ve gotten almost down to, contacts/email/messengers and then there are a couple apps which does govt id (like 2fa) that don’t have desktop version, grayjay, osm, whether, gadget bridge etc… And that’s it. I was wondering if any device with Ubuntu touch could do that. And one interesting thing I wanted to think is that if there is a cm5 (the blackberry raspberry pie thing) that connects to a 5g hotspot for wifi, can I run max things via browser and IP phone…etc… Would be an interesting experience/ experiment
Folks, many banks have now implemented 2FA through their apps. That is the only reason why i have it installed. But i keep it on a deperate GrapheneOS profile that i turn on anff as i need it.
Not sure I completely understand the thought here, apologies. Are you considering just emulating Android for some specific apps that only exist as apps? Seems a probable approach. I suppose extending that, one could even just emulate the apps on a computer at home and remote desktop into the computer from their phone to run them, although that’d be possibly obtuse.
May I ask what country has apps that require government ID to run on their phone for certain things? That seems a bit dystopian.
Sweden,Lituania,Denmark, Norway, Poland, that I know of, off the top of my head. And for the dystopian feeling you have, consider that its required for banking, tax filing and things where you would otherwise have to prove your identity with a government issued ID or passport. So no more dystopian than being required to show Id when taking out a house loan.
You can add Portugal, Spain and (I think) Estonia to that list. But really the tendency will be for more countries to adopt this technology. Whether we like it or not the degoogling/PrivSec community is really niche and most people prefer to use standard phones, and there these apps work perfectly.