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Comment by lawn | Hacker News Reader

How many alternative operating systems work well on Apple devices?

Android phones usually have multiple options (Lineage, Calyx, eos, Graphene, depending on your particular phone) and you can always replace Windows with Linux.

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How well do those alternatives play with your banking app?

Why would you want a banking app? If your bank won't work over browser and insists on installing some crap on your device, shop for another bank.

^This. For me, it's not my phone that's defective, it's the app. My phone runs my other ~10 apps that provide for my digital life perfectly fine, with the level of security I'm comfortable with (root access, firewall to block anything in/out that I don't specifically allow). If this is a problem for your app, your app is broken. I'll use something else.

In Finland, for example, you have to authenticate online through your banking application for any online government service or things like mobile plan. This 2FA is basically mandatory and the alternative is using keys printed on a paper that you have to pay for cause every key is one time use only and I am not sure they will continue that service for long.

It’s probably similar in Sweden and other neighbouring countries

The government delegates authentication to banks of all things?

I guess shop for another country?

I would not be able to log into _any_ local banking website without the government 2fa app. Not sure what the alternative is. Maybe they can give you an old school hardware device.

Or read the digital letters from government / municipalities.

Also I like my banking app.

> Not sure what the alternative is.

In your country? I'm not sure either.

In general? Slovenian government allows authentication via

- TLS client certificates,

- three different third party identity providers,

- ID card via a card reader

- .. or via NFC through a smartphone, and

- SMS OTP.

People who don't or don't want to use a smartphone shouldn't be barred from online government services or forced into a costly and slow authentication scheme when there's numerous better options.

Pretty well https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...

Also, having your banking app on your phone isn't the most desirable thing in reality, if you're security-minded.

My bank requires it, for better or for worse.

Any bank transfers are MFAd via the app, for example. It's the only bank that allows non-citizens in Germany that has English correspondence and wouldn't have taken months in Bureaucracy to open an account when I first moved.

Can I ask what bank that is? I'm looking at getting a German bank account, and I'm still much more comfortable with English.

N26 bank

So you chose an app-only 'bank' such as Revolut?

What did people do before such apps?

HSBC in the UK now blocks access to your accounts unless you use one of the allowed whitelisted keyboards.

Nobody is claiming every single app works perfectly on alternative Android OSes, so pointing out exceptions isn't really advancing the discussion

I'm not on an alternative Android OS. I'm on the shipped Samsung install no roots, and no hacks.

Old school banks will block access if you make your own keyboard so it doesn't phone home to Google or Samsung. Unless I misunderstood the original conversation.

I chose the only bank that'd allow me to accept a paycheck in a reasonable amount of time after moving across the planet, yes.

> having your banking app on your phone isn't the most desirable thing in reality, if you're security-minded.

Honest question: Why not?

I download less random program / files on my phone, then I do on my computer.

Think how your banking app might contain different data to other apps

He meant that the apps on the phone are less dangerous to a banking app.

I don't understand what you mean.

That really doesn't answer the question. It contains similar things to your bank website's browser cache. What exactly are you trying to say here?

Very well for my banking apps. With root and developers options enabled on my phone as well. If your banking apps does not work complain to your bank.

I've used CalyxOS and GrapheneOS and I haven't had any issues with the Swedish banks.

Very well, only the shittiest banking apps don’t work on them. Root is a bit more problematic, but would also be reason enough for me to change banks, as they seem to care more about theater than security.

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