Graphene passes basic integrity, so most of them work. There is a list here:

https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...

Porting traditional Linux desktop distributions to Android devices is meaningless, all you get is more instability, more unsafe and more trouble. Waydroid is a bad implementation on security and compatibility, just running Android in VM is better.

Nothing is stopping you. You're free to use a desktop web app that either doesn't work or is terribly slow or has limited features on a mobile web browser. I'd love it if all apps were PWAs but that is not the case.

I had to replace a credit card yesterday. Part of the default flow involves the call center sending a notification to your app. When I told them my android version was too old, it took them twenty minutes to find out they could instead send a text message. That text message sends you to a photo-and-id verification service, but that's another issue.

Soon, there won't even be an alternative flow. There are a lot of places where there already isn't.

> What's stopping me from using a browser to log in to my bank?

The "security module" they require you to install on your computer. In the past, when browsers had plugins, this was a browser plugin; nowadays, it's an always-on service (running as root) which exposes a local HTTP server which the bank site connects to to validate your computer. For an example from a major bank in this country (the same "security module" is used by several banks in this country), https://seg.bb.com.br/home.html is the diagnostic page for that "security module" (the FAQ page there has links to the installers).

The websites don't have feature parity with the apps these days. Things like being able to deposit a cheque aren't available among other things.

Some banks are app only and/or build MFA functionality into their apps.

The 2FA code you need to get from the phone app to log in on a desktop. It isn't 2005 any more.

The bank website typically needs the app to enable two factor authentication in a lot of places.

For eg. There's no browser based alternative to make UPI payments that i know of.

Well, it's kinda hard to scan a QR code displayed on your screen when the camera is attached to its back (semi-joking)

In many countries, all major local banks require their phone app as the second factor to log in to the browser version of their online banking. Sometimes functionality is removed from the browser version and made available only in the phone app.

The bank itself. They want to see where are you, what you do and snoop on anything they can about you. Having a spywa^W sorry, bank app is the best way to do that.

Source: my bank which recently 'upgraded' a browser version to a glorified SPA which even renders as a vertical oriented app on a landscape 4K monitor.

Not true, if you install play services you can run 99.9% of apps, i can even run all the italian apps from yhe goverment. You are still using google but its running as user service and you can even revoke most of the permissions including location.

Running their sandboxed Play, I can run everything. The only thing I notice in the US is some banking apps (stupidly, idiotically, moronically) force 2FA on every login instead of trusting biometric entirely like they do on stock OS.

yea i straight up am not downloading apps anymore if i can help it. virtually zero companies put apps out to provide a better experience, they just do it to get telemetry data. which is why all these banking apps are just their website in some wrapper lol

I wonder if practices will change any of there's ever a device that ships with GOS. Right now, many companies are happy to shrug off GOS, because they don't support "modified devices".

If any of the Motorola devices have GOS as a pre-installed option, now the companies don't have the excuse that the device is modified.

I'm guessing the companies will continue to be difficult, but it'll be amusing to watch, at least.

What is the point of apps for these things in particular? I understand that some banks require an app for 2FA, but I don't see why anyone would want some invasive healthcare app on their phone.

Yep. Had to change banks because of my old one suddenly dropping grapheme support by adding stupid attestation mechanics.

They surely must have gotten feedback from me and others because the next update it worked again. But I and probably others where already a lost customer.

Stop parroting this. It’s not true.

Diminishingly few apps do not work, and it’s down to them.