Steam Authenticator Rant

I also don't have a smartphone and normally I sell cards in order too buy games during sales now that is more difficult to do because the price of cards may have changed by the time they are put up

Valve's support is so slow because they have to wade through hundreds of thousands of "I got hacked" and "I got scammed" tickets.

They would rather make things miserable for legitimate users and easier for themselves.

I'm a mobile hater and completely understand your point of view. But since there's no way to bypass the mobile authentication I'd recomend you to get a cheap android mobile. And by cheap I mean REAL CHEAP. Get a used device on eBay or whatever similar service there is available for you. I own an ancient Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman (even its name is hideous), a 2011, 3" screen that runs Android 2.3.1. The only reason I have this is because of Steam and WhatsApp (a lot of my clients uses whatsapp). There's no need to spend a truckload of money with the newest iPhone or Galaxy S whatever the version it is now.

I use a cheap Huawei Android phone myself. Nothing fancy, but cost me $20 on sale and gives me a mobile for Steam, Miitomo (Nintendo mobile bullshit) and some internet in bed.

Umm.. Do emulators work? (AndyRoid, BlueStacks)

Try using WinAuth, I'm using almost 2 months and it is great.

SDA or WinAuth. Just don't forget that using those gives up the security that mobile nonsense is supposed to give.

If you still have the data on the old drive, you should be able to plug it in, copy over the Steam directory, and be able to access the market using that version of Steam. It should only be locked on the 'New Device', which in my experience, using a client that you've previously logged into on a new device won't be seen as a new login.

Yea, I've got this problem now too, I got a new phone and wanted the authenticator on that. So I removed it from my old phone first (which no longer has service) and tried to put the authenticator on my new phone but you have to get a sms which is a problem because my old number is the one tied to my account so I can't access the sms. Also, in order to remove a phone number you have to get a sms... kind of redundant. Its an annoying cycle. I contacted support but they take forever to actually respond.

if you haven't deleted your old HDD plug it in and copy
the directories for your browser which is data usually:
C:\Users\Name\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla
C:\Users\Name\AppData\Local\Mozilla

and replace them with the ones on your new computer > then it
will be as if that instance (browser) had never changed ...

alternatively, copy your steam profiles from the folder and replace them:
D:\Games\Steam\userdata

if it doesn't work, best copy the entire Steam folder except for games
that works guaranteed it should be around 1-2 GB only anyway (without games)

DominusFerrus is right, Steam applies cooldown to new device (a device is a medium to access Steam services such as Mobile, Client, Browser). A research beforehand the migration, would have shown that since many Google results show how to do it. A simple Browser Profile migration (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) would have solved your problem until the Steam Client's partial cooldown is lifted.

Also Steam rules are there not for users convenience. Steam makes rules as they encounter endless support tickets on that particular subject. So, even if it is inconvenient for all of us, Mobile Authenticator is there and on the contrary it is spreading to the games now as in TF2/CSGO competitive.

It's stupid for trading cards, yes. No doubt about it.
High value items? Yeah, I can see protecting them.

technically its not a ban , it happened to me also when i bought a new pc last year it locked the market for me if its good or bad is in the eyes of the beholder but if your account gets stolen its good to know they cant mess your inventory for 7 days which is enough time i think to get your account back (never happened to me so hope it takes less than 7 days otherwise there is no point)

I don't own a cellphone either. It sucks that there's a two-week hold put on any duplicate cards I try to put up for sale, all because I don't have a cellphone...