Hacker News Reader

How do you do 2FA? Bank wire confirmations?

Never need Google Maps? No whatsapp and messenger to talk to friends and family?

I'd love to be smartphone free but fail to see how I could do without those uses

Dumb mobile phones still have SMS, so 2FA still works and since it is a telephone, talking to friends and family is also possible. I suspect the reasons the OP gave up on the smart phone was to get away from all of those phone apps.

You probably shouldn't use SMS based 2fa. It's much worse than the alternatives.

While SMS-based 2FA may be worse than the alternatives, it is clear that the previous commenter has decided that having a smartphone is much worse than the alternatives.

Unless their financial institution offers a non-smartphone 2FA option, such as a PIN-based card reader[0], having to use SMS-based 2FA is a reasonable price to pay.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_Authentication_Program

For wire transfer there are still alternatives although becoming more and more difficult unfortunately. Other things one can still do without a smartphone, and the benefits outweigh the cons (for me at least).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com