"debugger vendors in 2047 distributed numbered copies only, and only to officially licensed and bonded programmers." - Richard Stallman, The Right to Read, 1997
I only have Linux PCs (laptops) and servers, 100% of my work and personal stuff is done there (though for work I do need to hop into MS365, Google Workspace, Zoom, etc, hooray for browsers, my final firewall between me and the walled gardens, though we can have a whole discussion on that).
For mobile, we have PostmarketOS, Phosh, Ubuntu Touch. I really must try living in them, is it on me? IDK, our government even has an identity app for iOS and Android. I should not be using it, I should stick to web. But its so much more convenient. I'm just weak, aren't I?
Maybe I should go for Ubuntu touch, with an iPad on the side or something. At least my most personal device is something I control then. Or just keep my Linux laptop handy (or make a cyberdeck!). But I want a computing platform that does not require carrying a bag. It's kinda sad. Even GrapheneOS (one of the most personal and secure mobile computing experiences out there)'s future is in the hands of its greatest adversary, the one that does not want you to have a personal computing experience.
I cannot imagine a legal defense for forcing someone to accept the terms of service of Apple or Google to use their bank account.
It's impossibly convenient to be perfectly fair with you, however I know that my bank has stopped issuing the "BankID Card" (which was a card and pin device that allowed you to generate challenge numbers)- and now forces you to use the BankID app -- which will not run on rooted phones of course.
It's even slightly worse as the App requires NFC; so I can't keep a backup on my iPad (which is what I was doing before).
https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu...
On the last change my bank made me call to their hotline (even though everything else is possible to be done online) to keep using a separate hardware device - which ended up being just "so, you don't want to do it on a phone?" - "yep" - "ok, should be with you in a week or so".
I nowadays consider my phones pretty much throwaway devices - I don't have full control, I can't fully trust them. Plus they could be stolen, break when I drop it into water outside, ... - so I think it's ridiculously stupid to tie anything important to a phone as main authenticator.
Overall the usefuleness of a phone has been declining steadily - the selling point of a smart phone originally was that I have an app, and because it's a reasonably trusted device it'll store credentials, and I can use the app without logging in every time. By now most of the apps are just repackaged websites, and because of that - and because they don't trust their backends - we now have quickly expiring tokens in use in the apps as well. Most of the apps I don't use every day - and over the last few months every single one wanted me to log in again next time I used it.
Adding to that the nonsense of "there's a new app available, download that first before using" which typically doesn't add anything of value to me, and we're now at a state that not only does the typical smart phone app not offer a benefit over just using a website - it now often is even worse than just using a website.
Feel free to say you are a member of the Church of Cryptography and that installing proprietary corporate controlled apps is against your religion.
Never been asked to install an app for banking, but a health care clinic dropped me as a patient for not buying a phone that can install their app. I was the first case where a patient refused to conform. Found a new clinic who was willing to earn my business with phone and email correspondence. The original clinic escalated the case to corporate HQ when I filed a public medical malpractice complaint, and they ultimately responded by adding a webapp.
DEMAND the right to live your life without corpotech in your pocket. I am now 5 years without a smartphone working as an engineer and founder with an active social life who frequently travels and it can absolutely be done.
The only issue I had on GrapheneOS was that I had to play with the location permissions a bit when I wanted to copy the BankID to GrapheneOS from another phone (I've got some pictures of that in this blog post: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2025/08/28/ill_only_buy_dev...).
All other Swedish bank accounts I've tried have also worked great (including Swish).