Exactly.

Through Handelsbanken I have two physical card readers.

• One is wireless and I can use to authenticate online purchases and login to Handelsbanken. That one works on any browser so it works no problem on Linux. It even has a camera on the back of it to scan QR codes.
• The second one connects through USB and requires you to download a program that only works on Windows and MacOS. This is the one that is required for all government services, other banks and everything else.

My hope was that I would be able to use the first physical card reader to scan the QR codes that come up for mobile bankID for other sites, but the QR code scanning functionality only works with Handelsbanken’s website.

If I could login to everything with the wireless card reader then they wouldn’t even need to make a version that specifically works for Linux, just a version that works for all browsers. It doesn’t seem like it would need to be that big of a change from perspective.

I hate BankID with a fiery passion. I complain to all my Swedish colleagues how messed up it is that government services are locked behind a private company that only supports American big-tech operating systems. They are finally coming around to my way of thinking now.

I’m one of the only people I know in Sweden without a smartphone, just a dumbphone.

I couldn’t get BankID to work with Wine or Waydroid so I just use an old Windows laptop when I need to access government services with the physical dongle. But I hate going back to Windows so it’s always a pain.

Thanks for the shout out. I’m glad you found the post useful. A further thanks for introducing me to this instance. I’m sure it will be very useful for keeping track of all the giveaways.