I spent the weekend switching 2FA services, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy

I would rather wish that I could avoid some tech-adjacent chores forever. I can’t tell you how long I’ve put off cleaning my PC of dust bunnies, or organizing my tech cupboard with a system that doesn’t hinge entirely on broken boxes and serpentine piles of cables. But as I discovered this past month, none of these tasks quite compares to switching to a new two-factor authentication (2FA) service.

2FA, sometimes called MFA (multi-factor authentication), is one of the many pillars of my online security strategy. It works by issuing a time-based one-time code (TOTP) that serves as a secondary proof of identity when logging in to a service. If 2FA is enabled on a service and you don’t have a 2FA code to go with it, any sign-in attempt will fail. If passwords are my door locks, 2FA codes are the slam gates. …