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Given how many times I've heard of people being locked out of their Google accounts, and are only able to regain access because they're still logged in on some
by elric 3y ago
Given how many times I've heard of people being locked out of their Google accounts, and are only able to regain access because they're still logged in on some rarely used device, I imagine that Google would lose a bunch of users if they suddenly started to expire those cookies.
- kevin_b_er 3y agoThey are already expired. That's the problem.
- fbdab103 3y agoI deliberately keep around an old Android phone in the event disaster strikes there is a teeny chance that logged in device might save me. If the Google machine decides to cull me, probably nothing I can do, but it costs me nothing to keep it sitting in a drawer.
- Erratic6576 3y agoBack in the 2000’s, we were dreaming of what would come next from Google. Then, in the 2010’s, we started to wonder what would be discontinued. Now, in 2020’s, we dread being locked out of Google accounts. I closed mine during the lockdown. My school cancelled my huge Cryptomator backup on Google. Now, work provides me with one but I can no longer rely on Google for anything crucial.
- ThatMedicIsASpy 3y agoI moved away a while ago. The only thing I still use would be youtube playlists. But even those are trash since they just say we've removed some because of whatever. Thanks I guess I would like to know which song you threw away! Now I pay 1€ a month for mail.
- sircastor 3y agoI have been slowly migrating/backing up everything related to my Google account. I’m just not confident that the ghost in the machine won’t decide randomly one day I’m not worthy of continued access. In another light, it’s a reminder that Google doesn’t really think of these accounts as ours, but theirs.
- eastbound 3y agoWhat spreadsheet tool do you use at work? I put my company on a competitor for Gmail, but then we still had to open Google accounts for Google Ads and Youtube and GDrive. Now I wonder whether I should officially subscribe, just for consistency.
- taneq 3y agoA few years ago I started getting increasingly worried about my Gmail account being a single point of failure for basically my entire life. Along with Google’s evolution into an evil empire this prompted me to completely excise them from my life. It took a couple of years to transition all my less-used accounts to my new email but the peace of mind is worth it.
- Roark66 3y agoSo which email provider would you say is more reliable? Self hosting on AWS etc? Edit:also, how do you replicate access to email/calendars across devices? (smartphones/PC)
- idontwantthis 3y agoIf you own the domain then you should still be able to use the account even if you get kicked off of a provider.
- swixmix 3y agoAnd receiving email at your own server is trivial.
- Roark66 3y agoYes it's trivial, but I'm asking for a commercial provider one can trust that uses software that doesn't suck horribly and one that doesn't just cut you off immediately if your payment to them fails, or locks your account until you phone them if you try the password too many times etc. If I wanted to host my own I wouldn't ask about providers... Email these days is about much more than just email. Calendar integration and sync between devices that lets you access email on said devices as well as resiliency one would want for an essential service mean just "hosting your own" is definitely not trivial. Then there is antispam etc.
- Erratic6576 3y agoFor me, it’s cheaper and easier to pay someone else
- never_inline 3y agoI am just following the High Availability principle and using both Microsoft and Google equivalents, with most data having a local copy anyway.
- skybrian 3y agoPrinting out backup codes [1] and keeping them with your important papers is probably a good idea too. [1] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1187538 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1187538
- fbdab103 3y agoI do have the backup codes, though I read an anecdote from someone where Google refused to accept the backup code. Because of course they can do that. Email is just so sticky, it is really hard to make the switch, but I know that it just takes some butterfly wings to upset the blackbox.
- maccard 3y agoCan you share that anecdote? That seems absolutely wild to me and I've never even heard it suggested before your post
- TheNewsIsHere 3y agoI am not the poster you replied to, but I’ve dealt with this in various forms. For a number of close family members Google has variously refused to accept valid recovery emails, valid recovery codes, and valid backup phone numbers in order to regain account access. Despite how ridiculous it is from a consistency and security perspective, your MFA- or backup contact- enrolled phone number with SMS is still essentially Google’s gold standard for determining rightful access to an account. Their auth and password reset processes are constantly changing and they have several steps that are automatically adaptive. The only foolproof ways I’m aware of to always retain access to your Google account is to enroll in Advanced Protection, and/or to use a paid Google Workspace account.
- throwaway290 3y agoRecovery codes saved my ass a few times though. Advanced protection is a good pointer. Seems like losing the hardware token device can be a disaster? On the other hand giving a service money is dangerous. They would be making money from you which means stricter checks. I'm still semi banned on Github because they had my card with Russian billing address (for sponsoring) when Putler attacked Ukraine. Good I didn't pay for anything Google.
- inquirerGeneral 3y ago[dead]
- gorlilla 3y agoI use a pw manager with a key and key file. We just had a house fire on xmas eve, and my DR plan of having a laptop in the garage with the important bits failed as I had just brought the laptop in to look over everything because it was so cold outside. I was screwed as all of my PCs/laptops, Servers, tablets, etc...burned up or were flooded by fire dept. I found my phone 8 hours later on the basement floor where it had been submerged in 8" of water from the fire dept. Miraculously it was dead and just wanted to be charged. (Samsung s22, fwiw). I'm typing on that now and still have access to everything! Phew.... take your personal DR seriously.
- franga2000 3y agoCould they just...stop locking us out of our accounts? For some reason, even knowing the password, being on a device+network combination I've used a dozen times before and entering a login code generated on an already-logged-in device still isn't enough to prove my right to use the account these days...
- hsbauauvhabzb 3y agoI think there’s a functional bug with very early (2006) accounts due to MFA or something. Good thing google has a high quality help desk to report bugs /s
- londons_explore 3y agoI think if they have ever seen your account password in any password dump/leak (ie. if you reused the password elsewhere), then they effectively prevent password login. You have to have another already-active session. Makes sense really.
- sodality2 3y agoIt would make more sense to inform the user this, then enforce these checks until the user changes it. Anecdotally, my Google account's password has never been in any dump (password manager, very long random alphanumeric, changes every 6 months) and I too deal with these annoying prompts.
- hsbauauvhabzb 3y agoIn my case, the workflow requires a recovery token which was sent to an email account I have access to, authenticating with the token results in a security error. Despite having access to the password, the recovery email account and an active session, I could not activate a new session. It didn’t make sense, not that it matters when google refused to have a help desk or meaningful way to report bugs.
- _zoltan_ 3y ago
- JeffSnazz 3y ago> I imagine that Google would lose a bunch of users if they suddenly started to expire those cookies lol
- omnifischer 3y agoIf you have some form of 2FA (like QR code or SMS or U2F-key) this will never happen. Some like you are misinformed.