You see, a lot of really smart people worked very hard to make standardized multifactor authentication so different companies can make products that work with the MFA on different sites and services.
The standardized versions are very cross compatible and very very secure.
Some dumb dumbs want to be different and make you install some application on your smartphone so that you can do the exact same thing but only for their site/service. This is widely considered a bad idea, and it makes people sad. Having to install yet another app, just so you can do something that could, and should be possible with the very good existing technology that’s been created by those very smart people I mentioned before, is stupid, inconvenient, and frustrating for anyone who understands how these things work, and how secure they actually are.
Since the app that the dumb dumbs made was created by them, for them, and they don’t share how that app functions, it can very justly cause concern with those that enjoy their privacy, since the app could be doing any number of potentially nefarious things. When you compare that with the known and trusted methods of authentication created by the smart people, it’s understandable that people would not appreciate having to use some proprietary application to do something that’s already able to be done in a safe and predictable way.
… I think I may have used too many big words. You did ask me to eli5…
I can try:
You see, a lot of really smart people worked very hard to make standardized multifactor authentication so different companies can make products that work with the MFA on different sites and services.
The standardized versions are very cross compatible and very very secure.
Some dumb dumbs want to be different and make you install some application on your smartphone so that you can do the exact same thing but only for their site/service. This is widely considered a bad idea, and it makes people sad. Having to install yet another app, just so you can do something that could, and should be possible with the very good existing technology that’s been created by those very smart people I mentioned before, is stupid, inconvenient, and frustrating for anyone who understands how these things work, and how secure they actually are.
Since the app that the dumb dumbs made was created by them, for them, and they don’t share how that app functions, it can very justly cause concern with those that enjoy their privacy, since the app could be doing any number of potentially nefarious things. When you compare that with the known and trusted methods of authentication created by the smart people, it’s understandable that people would not appreciate having to use some proprietary application to do something that’s already able to be done in a safe and predictable way.
… I think I may have used too many big words. You did ask me to eli5…