It’s been a bad February for desktop applications. Two that I use a lot are going away. Twilio Authy, used for two-factor authentication, will not be supported on the desktop after March 19, and it may or may not work at all after that. People who don’t plan for it may find themselves temporarily locked out of accounts that use it for 2FA. On Macs with the Apple processor, the iOS version of the application apparently works, though Twilio hasn’t certified it for the Macintosh. I got it running on my Mac without problems, and I’ve used it for a few days. It works, though its user interface is distinctively inferior on a computer with a keyboard and mouse.

Be careful, though. There are fake apps taking advantage of the confusion; as I’m writing this, there’s a app called “Authhy” (with two h’s) on the App store, which I’m effectively certain is a Trojan horse. I can’t find any way to report it to Apple.

More relevant to readers of this blog, Grammarly is discontinuing its desktop application. According to the notice when I run my app, it will stop working on March 18. It suggests that users go to its website to check their writing.

In an earlier article, which has been one of the most popular ones on this blog, I noted that Grammarly has a poor grasp of security. They’ve made misleading statements to create a better impression. In particular, they define “keylogger” in a non-standard way to deny that their browser extension is, and by design has to be, one. Keyloggers are simply “tools that record what a person types on a device,” and they include software with “legitimate and legal uses.” They aren’t bad things as such, but they’re especially sensitive to security issues. Someone who tapped into the Grammarly extension could pick up everything users type into the browser, picking up lots of confidential information. Grammarly’s attempt to downplay the issue suggests that they don’t take security seriously.

Using the Grammarly website is probably no riskier than using the app, but don’t use Grammarly browser extensions. I don’t trust them to take security issues seriously. Also, don’t use Grammarly or any other Internet service to check highly sensitive text.

Is this a trend? Is it just my bad luck that two desktop apps which I frequently use are going away in the same month? A quick Web search shows other apps that have been discontinued recently, including QuickBooks, Twitch, and Ring. Maybe the future is one in which we have to use our phones for everything.