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Comment by hollow-moe | Hacker News Reader

And all are useless because you can't use your mandatory bank or gov id app.

Not useless. It is like the missing printer driver for Linux Desktop. It makes the experience ugly, but this is not the fault of the Linux OSes.

Also the bank should not require apps (instead they can offer hardware key support or desktop apps) and in fact some - at least in Germany - offer a different authentication possibility. Also the app for the German ID is published on fdroid and does not rely on Google services.

Good for Germans then. Slovenian banks won't let you use physical 2FA authenticators (for personal accounts and maybe even business ones at this point) anymore and will also require you to constantly update their stupid app (I've had to replace some otherwise good phones because the OS version wasn't supported anymore).

Is that because of some regulatory requirements that they don't support physical 2FA?

There are plenty of banks in Germany which offer over-the-counter services, if you prefer to do banking as if it's 1999. Most of the time, when people say it's impossible to live without a smartphone, it's actually only impossible to enjoy the conveniences of the internet without a smartphone (at least in Germany). Besides these rentable scooters, I can't think of anything that actually requires a smartphone. Sure, you'll miss out on a lot of conveniences, but I remember a time where that was the norm, so it's not like it's unreasonable.

The comparison to 1999 is not entirely accurate. It doesn't take into account that most physical banking locations closed down. At least here in Belgium for example, you have to go far to find one, and it's often on appointment only.

To add to the sibling comment, you are also ignoring the fact that in 1999 nobody had those conveniences, everybody was on equal ground. In 2026, if you handicap yourself by rejecting those "conveniences", you will be met by friction at every step - lower productivity at work, impatient looks from your family members etc.

I recently bought my first smartphone, just went for a refurbished Pixel 8 with GrapeheneOS.

To be honest, life without a smartphone was increasingly becoming a PITA.

For example, Ryanair doesn't accept printed tickets anymore.

A few clubs in Berlin (Tresor, Ohm, Oxi) have recently replaced their cloakroom by automated lockers that require a smartphone to operate.

I've encountered a few gyms (2 in Spain, 1 in USA) that use live-updated QR codes to enter the gym.

I did a project in the US and the client's office required a smartphone to open the door.

In Spain it's common since the pandemic to have restaurants that only offer the menu as QR code.

In fact, the pandemic was rough, as you had this system where you had to register with a QR code in most places. In many places they had a paper-registry that I could use, but often I would have to end up just using a friend's phone.

Plus all 4G dumbphones are crap compared to older 2G models. The few that exist are built really bad, designed for old people, lack features like T9. 2G is out already in great parts of the world.

To be honest, it saddens me deeply that the only way to live in society today involves carrying an internet-connected computer in your pocket. But it was just too much of burden... With GrapeheneOS the experience still feels somewhat acceptable and I get a somewhat similar feeling of control to what I get using NixOS on my laptop. But still...

https://dumbermini.com/ (LineageOS fork)

https://commodore.net/callback/ (Sailfish OS)

I too am a GrapheneOS Pixel 8 user. However, I am starting to realise even a screen this large is a huge source of distraction and dopamine fracking that I don't have the time or desire for in my life. So I'm looking at these even dumber options. I just want my calendar and email, and maybe Signal. No web browser or socials.

thank you! I'll definitely consider those.

one thing that helps me is using OLauncher as replacement from the system "shell" UI. it's on f-droid.

and the News Feed Eradicator browser extension. God's send.

and of course don't install Insta, X, Reddit, etc.

And what if I'm someone that depends on the city bike rentals to live my life? I cannot use them without the official app.

Additionally, there are many sports and music venues where i live that require smartphone apps for ticketing.

Giving up my favorite forms of entertainment and transport isn't really reasonable imo

I have a German bank sccount that can be used with a standalone code generator, that uses the chip on your bank card.

I have a Finnish bank account that use a completely standalone, purely time-based code generator.

Alternatives exist. But with current know your customer requirements it's increasingly difficult to open new ones if you are a foreigner and/or non-resident.

The question of how useful or not it is is orthogonal to whether it is the "fault" of Linux. Users who can't use it because something they need just doesn't work won't change their minds because the blame lies elsewhere.

Does the F-Droid version of the app use hardware attestation?

SailfishOS can run lots of banking apps with an Android emulation layer.

It's not perfect, but far from useless. Some use it as a daily driver.

Depending on your country, it can be super doable. There are also lots of indie native apps.

Probably not the case for most people. I'm living abroad and had to do something on the Brazilian e-gov platform. To log in I had to confirm my ID with an Android app. Not only is it exclusively on Play store, but it also refuses to install on any rooted device, so I had to boot an old non-rooted Android I had stored somewhere.

I'm confident this is a very common experience worldwide, be it with gov IDs or banks.

Are you saying the e-gov platform cannot be accessed using their website on a computer? So people without smartphones are excluded?

Recent headlines in Finland say that about 10% of the population are basically excluded from society with no access to important services.

Basically yes. Maybe you can access the "unprotected" version, which is basically useless as all the features necessitate an android/iphone device for 2fa.

No, a phone that cannot run the apps that are required for me to attend certain events is in fact useless to me. It's not the fault of Linux mobile vendors that their product is useless to me, but that doesn't change the fact that it is indeed useless

We're moving to a world where it makes sense to have one cheap locked down phone with the society mandated garbage apps on it, and another device that you use for real computing.

Yes!

But as a Plan B, why aren’t we emulating Android on these devices (or is it the Secure Enclave that’s the spicy bit that these apps need)?

Fortunately Google thought about this, so government ID and banking apps usually check that they are running on a sufficiently locked down and officially blessed phone through the Play Integrity API.

This makes emulation basically impossible.

How about saying no to these "mandates"?

We aren't given the choice, in many cases. For example I remember a poster here who was forced to have an Android or Apple phone because his kids' school required an app to pick up the kids after school. So his options were to get a big tech phone, or get in trouble for not picking up his kids. "Get the school to come to their senses" was, unfortunately, not an option available to him.

I've been using several GNU/Linux smartphones as my only phones for the past 18 years (with a short exception around 10 years ago when I carried an Android phone too as there was a gap on the market) so I can say from first-hand experience that it's really not such a big deal as everyone keeps painting it. For these kinds of odd needs where you have no hope to fight back you just launch Waydroid, use the app and stop the container afterwards. However, when you do fight back it often turns out that this "mandatory app" isn't actually so mandatory and in turn you contribute to making the world around you a bit better.

The question is should the sane minority jump from the roof in one of the allowed ways - headfirst or assfirst - only because the majority decided (or was duped into believing) it was convenient to do so, or better not partake in madness?

Android is going to bifurcate between "phones that run proprietary apps from the play store" and "phones that run software from anywhere else." And while maybe you can get by without banking apps, your life is going to get increasingly harder when you want to do many other things.

Ride hail app? Transit fare app? Government ID app? Airline app? Maybe you don't need them yet, but the best way to model this future is to consider what you'd do if you didn't have a phone at all, and the amount of friction this will generate as the expectations are only entrenched and expanded.

I'm glad people are saying no. It's good to do it as long as we can. But the final outcome seems inevitable now and to me it feels very close.

No.

If 'society' can mandate garbage on us, that is a bigger problem.

I actually agree that the "two-phone future" makes sense, but I still wouldn't bet on it actually taking off on a large scale, because 95% (maybe even 99%) of people won't carry a second device just to preserve a freedom they don't really feel they're losing in their daily lives. Large corporations are able to make such radical decisions with ease precisely because of this inertia of the masses.

In my country, partially due to sanctions, you can access the bank via browser and receive 2FA codes on $15 dumb phone. Also why do you need bank app on your phone? Do you like to give money to random strangers on the street? Only scammers need money urgently. Also it is not secure to use the phone as a single factor to access the bank.

I do not have any bank apps on my phone (it is not even connected to the Internet) and I have no problem.

App can work as digital money without card reader, maybe even free, like bitcoin.

In a town nearby me (not really near me but within an hour's driving distance), sometimes I will see old people selling fresh fruit/vegetables in their front yard. They typically take cash, Cashapp, or Venmo. It's super convenient to be able to use Venmo in that situation. These are people I haven't met before.

I usually pay with cash. As a nice bonus, cash works even if there are mobile Internet shutdowns or blackouts and they cannot block the cash in your wallet unlike a bank account.

So, you live in a part of the world that still accepts cash. Good for you.

That part is shrinking however, so you need a plan to cope with that situation sooner or later. Not doing business with others and growing your own food does not suffice as a plan for most people.

> Also why do you need bank app on your phone?

Many banks gate features like mobile check deposit behind the native app. The nearest ATM is 20 minutes away from my house, so unfortunately I consider this feature essential.

Interesting, I never saw a bank check. The companies typically transfer money directly into the account, and there are P2P transfers by a phone number working between any major banks. So I guess.. I do not need this feature.

Two cases when I've received a bank check without being able to choose an alternative: 1) as payment of proceeds in a class-action lawsuit; 2) when I got a refund from my insurance provider after changing the terms.

These might not be very common, but they're still not really rare in society either.

How often are you still receiving physical cheques that mobile deposit is an essential feature? I could probably count on one hand the number of cheques I've deposited or written in the past ~15 years, nor can I say I've been so desperate to access said money that I feel the need to deposit the cheque within moments of receiving it.

Checks are still common in the good ole USA.

Common? maybe for seniors. I probably handle a physical check once a year.

My health insurance company sends reimbursement as paper cheques in the mail, so I get multiple cheques per year. Some landlords still aren't recieving rent any other way than by cash or cheque. Happy for your chequeless existence tho!

Until i moved a few years ago i paid every month's rent with a paper check for 12 straight years as that's what my landlord demanded

At least 3 times a month. I have a rental property and my tenant prefers to mail a check instead of paying extra to pay electronically. My spouse gets paid by check for dumb reasons I won't get into. I sometimes get dividends from my insurance company via check. And then several family members still prefer to use checks to pay each other back instead of Venmo or other electronic services.

I blame it on the fact that the US doesn't have a free electronic bank transfer system like the rest of the developed world.

Carry a second cheap smartphone, like Pixel -a series or iPhone -SE. That one should be used for banking, government apps, for border inspections, etc. On your main GrapheneOS phone your financial app should be a Bitcoin wallet. The main phone should be off or in the BFU state when you are in a vulnerable situation.

I can do everything on my bank app from prepaying small amounts of a loan, spend analysis, opening fixed deposits and such.

I could do it all in a web browser on a laptop at home as well. Without annoying ads in notifications and without a risk to lose money if the phone gets backdoored.

Some banks require 2FA through their phone app to login to internet banking on the computer.

Yeah, all of them claim that... but I just walk into the bank and say I don't have an Android or Apple 'smart' phone, only a Linux pocket computer (Librem 5). So they could either buy me a duopoly smart phone, or let me log in via web browser with physical token or other MFA... or I take my money elsewhere.

I have several bank accounts in 2 different countries, and all of them backed down either gave me a hardware token or let me use the web app.

If an institution is holding your money hostage until you are forced to run their surveillance-tracker-infested malware on your personal device, that is a much bigger problem than what OS or device you choose.

That's why I understand the appeal of permission-less Open Source freedom money like Bitocin (BTC) and Monero (XMR).

I don't have a mandatory bank or gov id app. Where are you living?

Apparently much of Europe is a strange banking dystopia.

Perhaps the antiquity of the US banking system is finally coming in handy. I’ve still got my checkbook ready to go!

I'm still living in the Netherlands without a bank app. It's occasionally less convenient, but quite doable.

I'm living in Poland and the only thing my bank's application gives me that its website doesn't are mobile TOTP-based payments - and even then it just works in Waydroid, so I can still use it on a GNU/Linux phone if I want to.

In sweden it's not "mandatory" in the sense that it's illegal not to have it. It's just really really complicated to live without.

Many services won't work at all.

Might be worth trying to get your gov to pin down the number of users or process to get gov id supported on any new platform.

They likely wont specify 100k people or 10% of population or whatever email/petition but it at least records the requirement that other OSes exist and requires a process to support

Online banking is a thing. A heck of a lot more secure than an app on a certified android device passing play integrity but having last received security updates years ago and with a ton of privilege escalation exploits. Gov id? Just say no.

I oppose appdwang (although that can be hard, but until now I managed). Learn more about appdwang at https://appdwang.nl/ (in Dutch).

I switched banks and made sure it doesn't require Android/iOS. Many banks propose FIDO2 + SMS, even bank of america does.

I mean gov id app really doesn't matter (for now) you can just use you id card which is credit card sized. (For now has things might change wrt. age verification.)

But banking apps are a problem.

It's not even about the main online banking (you can use a web portal) or storing a EC digitally in you phone (convenient but really unneeded).

The problem is dump, misguided 2FA apps. E.g. credit card 2FA which already mostly required Android/iOS to work or even online banking login 2FA, transaction 2FA etc. with same requirement.

Currently for the later I can still use other methods but for a huge amount of Banks where I live you can't use a credit card (reliably) without Android or iOS as "carrier" for an 2FA app.

I don't use bank or gov id apps, why are these mandatory? Country-specific?

Weird definition of useless.

This bogus "justification" for not considering any alternative, non-corporate mobile OS on any phone makes no sense

HN commenters will not let it go

Most HN readers have multiple computers, including multiple phones

There is no requirement that one has to run a closed-source banking or government ID app on the same phone as open-source apps, e.g., apps from F-Droid

And it ignores countless people who do not and will never use banking or government ID apps

I tested a banking app for depositing a paper cheque and it was incredibly convenient. At the same time, the app tried to make a plain, unencrypted HTTP connection to www.google.com

I blocked these connection attempts and the app still worked, with plenty of phoney error warnings. I would not be comfortable leaving one of these apps installed on a phone that's charged, powered on and has a cinnection to the internet

Every user is different but it makes no sense to argue on HN of all places that these closed-source banking apps are essential for everyone. Many HN users are never going to use these apps, and rightfully so

"Smartphones" are not general purpose computers

If a bank or government requires use of a "smartphone app" then this does not mean this smartphone must be used for any other purpose(s)

Nothing forces someone to install the app on every smartphone they own

These required apps do not prevent anyone with multiple smartphones from using alternative OS, i.e., not Android or iOS, on some of them

Except they're not useless because a lot of people aren't mandated to use any such apps. (And I feel sorry for those that are.)

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