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by wtfstatists 2952 days ago
Nah its just stupid programming from Google. You will spook GMail if you try to access from different country. It will lock you out. Good luck trying to remember details about your decade old email account.

You thought knowing and maintaing strong password is enough to guarantee access. Well Google disagrees with you.

1 comments

It is nothing stupid/spooky. Remember Google develops for mainstream. They are happy. Just enable 2FA all your issues will go away. Oh, try not to use shady VPNs.
> Just enable 2FA all your issues will go away.

If migrate to a different country and dont have access to your old number you will be in world of pain.

But if you enable 2FA and lose, factory-reset (or shock, migrate away from) your Android device...

Getting access to anything is suddenly hell. I explicitly disabled 2FA after encountering this bullshit once. Won’t risk losing my account again.

The trick with Google's 2FA is to keep a copy of the setup code and/or QR picture somewhere -- preferably printed and in your fire safe.

Personally I've also got it floating around one of my Linux devices with a small program I can run against it to display the codes, which came in handy when I switched phones and forgot to reload the GA app. (Yes, I know that this defeats some of the security of the second factor, with it supposedly being "something you have" that can't be easily reproduced).

It's a good thing that using a single factor doesn't put you at any increased risk of "losing my account again" as a result of it being easily stolen...
Ive never had issues with losing my Google-password nor having my long, complex password guessed over a more than 10 year period of having that account.

I’ve almost lost my Google account twice in less than a year due to Google’s terrible 2FA implementation.

I’ll take my chances thank you.

Damn and I downloaded a picture of the 2FA thing. Now you are spooking me about 2FA, maybe I should disable it on my googly accounts.