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Comment by oil25 | Hacker News Reader

How are these alternatives "privacy-friendly"? I'm pretty sure Opera, Vimeo and many others are monetized and include advertising. Also, why does something like Google Authenticator need a "privacy-friendly" alternative when it doesn't even need Internet connectivity to work? Don't get me wrong, we should put down Google products, but are the ones listed here really any better for privacy and security?

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Personally, I use andOTP because:

- it's available in F-Droid - it has a PIN

The first guarantees that I'll know if they try to sneak something in (they're good at labeling potentially undesirable features), and the second just makes so much sense that I don't know why Google Authenticator doesn't do it (it might now, but it didn't when I last used it).

Also, I just like how andOTP looks more than Google Authenticator, but that's entirely subjective.

That being said, the fact that andOTP _can_ exist really keeps other apps in line. So even if you don't use an alternative like andOTP, you still benefit from it existing.

Looking at AirTable's Privacy Policy, it does not appear that they have any interest in protecting privacy. They have a line in their "How We Share Your Data" section, that reads:

* With others for any legitimate business purpose, provided the information is aggregated and anonymized.

So...you're selling it.

Yet Google Authenticator requests full network access. An alternative like AndOTP doesn't.

Presumably for https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/2653433?visit_id=...

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