I don't find this uncommon. I also work as a freelancer, but for local companies (eu). Sometimes the company (banks for example) will ask me to work on one of their laptops, which has vpn and other software that they want. I can of course deny, but then I won't get the contract. As long as I don't feel that they are invading my privacy, like you hear some companies do by taking screenshots, checking for idleness, etc, then I don't mind. In your case I would just rent/buy a new laptop specifically for this job, install their tool and don't worry about it. At the end you can sell your laptop. Or maybe you can work out of a VM running on your laptop, and install it there.