Firefox Relay has phone masks. I don't know if they actually work though. I never had a need to try them.
this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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Privacy
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Google Voice often works.
A google service doesn't really inspire trust in privacy? I'm trying to move away from Google services as much as possible.
I'd rather be 1 of billions of Google users instead of 1 of thousands on another smaller service. But a prepaid burner phone that doesn't require any sort of personal information would be the ultimate privacy and still get you SMS capability.
That's certainly a different approach than what I do.
SMS is unencrypted, insecure, and not private to begin with. Your SIM provider can see everything you send plus track you via cell towers.
As someone who is currently de-googling my own stuff I understand but wanting google services but please don't think it being Google is why it's not Privacy focused.
Its simply to avoid handing out my real phone number to companies so they can use it to match data from other datasets that link it to me. If im giving them my real phone number, i might as well also just give them my real email and not an alias.
Then a Google voice number is fine for that. Just create a junk Gmail and had that number out.
This. Works for many, but there are some services that recognize it's a VoIP service and won't allow it (I think discord was one that won't work)
Another option is a burner phone, which are relatively cheap. You have to use them periodically or they'll disable and recycle the number, but you can typically find them for around 25$.
Pay for an online number, there's one time phone number websites you can use, but services are getting better at detecting if it's a real cell number and block VoIP numbers.
It's good to be leary to give your number to a business or service for privacy, but there's no valid reason to obsess about individuals getting you number on a social level, you're not important enough for other individuals to start bothering you simply because they got your number. I have a business card I give out with my personal number. However it also means you can't use plain texting because other apps on the the other person's device will see from your text message that this is a live number to track and spam.
This is mostly just for various online sign ups, they have no valid reason to get my real phone number.
To verify online sign up and not registering your number with an app or service, your only choice is to pay for a second number or not sign up at all.
I've recently been looking into mysudo. For $1 a month you can get 1 number as well as some extra stuff if you care about that.
You can use it without Google services if running GrapheneOS but it takes a second normal phone and a throwaway Google account to work. Incoming notifications don't work but if used as a spam number that's probably a good thing lol. (https://support.mysudo.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4414403558555-When-will-MySudo-be-supported-on-GrapheneOS-?page=1#community_comment_4414489480859)
Haven't pulled the trigger on it but seems like something I will probably set up at some point