I'm so fucking sick of Google and other sites ratcheting up ""security"" and bullshit steps to """"""""""protect"""""""" me when they don't give half a rat's ass about any individual welfare or security. like they literally don't give a shit about any of us but this stupid fucking forced 2FA crap and mobile-tied-to-all-account-actions-on-desktop Google got aggressive on is pissing me off beyond anything else. this shit is forced on us only to remove themselves from any claims of liability.
I use a password manager for years (keepassdx & keepassxc) to generate absurdly long random passwords and change them at least yearly. no shady downloads on my PC, no pirated stuffs of any kind, I'm computer savvy in general and run a tight ship. recently trying to clean up (log out) some old mobile sessions on my Google account, and change my main account password, things I've done quickly and without hassle in the past. suddenly being asked for password AND forced to tap the stupid fucking number sent to my Android phone, which of course I don't receive because it's sending to some stagnant Android session that was overwritten by my various Android and GrapheneOS installs (tinkerer).
completely stonewalled on my own account now. can't change password any more because the shitty little kindergarten secret passcode doesn't send to my current accessible Android install, can't log out old devices to keep it from being sent to those. tangential note, last year the rent payment portal for my shithole apartment added forced 2FA to all accounts too, never had it before and shit was just fine, but now an extra step and waste of my fucking time just to pay the do-nothing landleech who lives in a different fucking state.
so fucking pissed I could break someone's face rn. fuck everything. fuck capitalist-infected software. fuck techbros. fuck Google. fuck AI. fuck Flock. so tired of this endless fucking bullshit that keeps getting worse. thanks for hearing my TED talk.
The 2FA isn't to protect you, it's to reduce the cost Google has to pay to recover accounts and mitigate any damage somebody stealing accounts could do, and to limit their liability if personal data was somehow compromised due to SFA. It also makes it easier for them to use your account for fuckshit in the future, like banking or healthcare if and when they choose to go there.
I migrated off Google about a year ago for email when there was the fake scare about them using email data for AI training. Now I just use Google for Youtube. Self-host my own cloud, Jellyfin, etc. etc. It's tradeoffs but IT is a skillset and hobby I like, and its nice not being beholden to any Big Tech besides my email provider. I highly recommend it if the option makes sense to you.
yeah I'm with you on the rationale these companies use to force 2FA on everyone. I understand lots of internet users are sloppy and uneducated about the risks of easy and shared passwords and it has basically always been like that. I'd like to gtfo Google for good but this is not the moment for that (can't delete the account anyway while it's soft locked like this). and my current problem, I fear, is either never going to get fixed or will be at the mercy of whatever LLM bot Google has put in charge of support tickets.