However, the reason I asked here is to get a feeling about how common this thing is. Is this normal? Am I the rat in the lab, or am I just late to the party?
Say, we fought against DRM and while the music industry have completely abandoned it, that victory turns out to be useless because the video streaming industry have embraced it total and there's not even resistance against it this time.
I am so, so tired of fighting against these. I translated Doctorow's anti DRM speech in 2004 into my native tongue as one of my last acts as a Hungarian journalist. We have been fighting for so long. And the DRM war is lost.
Nonetheless , we need to stand. We, who have the privilege to be able to say "meh, I quit" because we know the next job is just days away. We need to for the sake of all those who do not have such a privilege.
This is a thing the unions would have exterminated in the past. Problem is, most developers are not in a union.
There is still the choice to "just say no".
It won't go away by itself because if they're asking it means you are in their corporate directory and showing up as noncompliant in the Drata dashboard.
It's extremely normal on company hardware used for business purposes. The conflict here is trying to run multiple clients on the same personal hardware. Never do that.
If they're willing to give you a company-owned laptop, take that. Then it is their machine to configure however they like. If not, tell them you'll lease a laptop dedicated to them only and pass on the monthly cost (with some profit margin) as part of your monthly invoice.
Recently they provided a Macbook pro, in which I installed Little Snitch and taped the camera, so I don't worry any more.