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Comment by probably_wrong | Hacker News Reader

I'm waiting for the day in which I can sign up for 2FA without giving my phone number. At this point, I believe they are holding it on purpose, as my phone number is a much more reliable unique identifier than my username and/or cookies.

(Yes, you can use the Google authenticator, but no, you can't do it if you haven't given your phone number first)

Edit: by "they" I mean GMail - other sites work just fine.

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To use google authenticator you do not need to give out your number. Most sites will have a qr code you can scan with your phone and the google authenticator app uses that to generate 2fa codes that are valid within a certain time frame.

I just checked. The first screen I got says "Step 1/3: we'll either call you or send you an SMS. Please give us your phone number".

You cannot skip this step on GMail, or at least I couldn't find how. I know you can use the app afterwards, but not before.

Other sites just give me the code, as you say. But not GMail.

You could create a Google Voice account with a free number and link to that. Set it up so calls/sms/etc go nowhere but can be changed if you need to restore your Gmail account later with that number.

How recently have you tried to do so? I tried a couple of months ago to set up a Gmail account with a Google Voice number for verification, and it refused to let me with a message which I recall as being vaguely like "This is not an acceptable verification number".

You can rent a burner SMS number for a couple bucks on a site like https://smsprivacy.org/

The workflow does not, and so far as I can tell, never has, support this. I've commented on it for years at G+.

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