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Yeah, I only use credit cards or cash these days, and leave my debit cards frozen/locked. The only time I would need my debit card is to use an ATM, and it’s easy enough to login on my phone and unlock it. I’ve had several fraudulent charges on various cards, and so far it has been resolved with a short phone call and a reissue, and my replacements seem to come faster than new credit cards. The rewards are nice, but the purchase protections are the real reason I use them.
biometrics
Biometrics are really nice, and on newer phones, way more secure than a PIN. They’re also local-only, so they’re quite privacy-friendly.
But absolutely have a backup. I use a long PIN as my backup, and my bank lets me use a long PIN on my debit card as well, so I keep them the same (easier to remember that way). I use my fingerprint for pretty much everything, but I also have my phone reboot itself after a period of inactivity, which forces a PIN login (again, helps me remember it). Oh, and it’s a random PIN, so not something anyone could guess (I’m a developer, so I used a small Python script: import random; ''.join(str(random.randint(9)) for _ in range(N))
where N is your desired length). I ran three of those and picked one.
And yeah, Bitwarden is fantastic. I apparently have >300 logins, and there’s no way I’d be able to remember that many unique passwords.
Here’s a Naomi Brockwell video about it. I also used to avoid it, but that video changed my mind. I can easily turn off the biometrics if I’m going somewhere where LE might force me to unlock it (e.g. travel), but I can just mis-scan it a few times and it’ll force me to enter the PIN anyway.
Yeah, that can work, but GrapheneOS at least has an automatic reboot option after so much time has passed w/o being used. I set mine to 4 hours so it’ll reboot at night, but I make it a lot less when I’m traveling. Everything is encrypted on a fresh boot and calls still work (emergency outgoing, and any incoming), so it’s a really nice bit of extra security for lazy people like me.