Are there any ways to avoid handing over your real phone number, besides having an extra SIM? Lots of places/services want SMS verification, but i rarely want to hand out my actual phone number.
What everyone said already works great.
More options, where you can get a sms for one off use (or longer) for a few cents, pay with Monero.
https://kycnot.me/search?q=sms&type=
jmp, smspool, juicysms, crypton, etc, etc all give you a sms endpoint to use.
Firefox Relay has phone masks. I don’t know if they actually work though. I never had a need to try them.
If it’s for a one-time sign up and you don’t need it for anything else afterwards, then try smspool.net . They’re pretty cheap. For example US numbers for Google signups are like 40 cents. They’ve worked pretty well for me too.
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.
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$.
ChatGPT recognizes Google voice numbers for what they are.
2nd line, you get a free number to use
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.
