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Comment by donalhunt | Hacker News Reader

Any particular reason?

1. In a thread about being locked out of google services because of AI black box, it makes sense to reduce dependence anywhere possible

2. If you get a new device, you need to un-enrol and re-enrol in all 2fa providers with g authenticator - it's a nightmare. Very hard if the old device got fatally dropped in a pool! I know at least with Authy you can carry the tokens to a new device.

I just want to chip in and say that 2. can be helped somewhat by having a second device (maybe old smartphone on wifi) that you export all authenticator keys to. Stick the old phone in a safe and make sure it's still working every so often (2x/year?)

This is relatively new - a few years ago Authenticator did not support this.

Oh, and make sure before you use the emergency device, time is synced - codes won't work otherwise.

> This is relatively new - a few years ago Authenticator did not support this.

Thanks, this was around when my device went for a swim.

Aside from the other reasons cited, at least once in the past Google replaced Authenticator with a new app and I had to re-configure all of my 2FA from scratch to transfer over. Deeply untrustworthy, it's already bad enough having to reconfigure 2FA when I get a new phone without them forcing me to do it again.

I use Authy these days.

https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/20899/why-does-t...

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