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And I still using email
very unsecure mostly
Why are we installing Whatsapp to begin with?
Where I live everything is on WhatsApp. You want to get ahold of a business: WhatsApp, friends organizing a party: WhatsApp, want to check the traffic: WhatsApp.
Same here. Just check out of society and you’re good (:
Wrappers are available as snaps/flatpaks
None of which support voice/video calls. Also the native app on windows is fast af
There are plenty of desktop wrappers available for the Web version. I don’t use WhatsApp often but from my experience it seems fairly similar to the Windows desktop app
Afaik they created a Windows client that’s native sort of recently and I’m pretty sure it’s a better experience than the web version because that’s one slow as hell to initially load for me.
Main problem is that it doesn’t have voice and video calls there.
Ah fair enough, I can see how that’d be an issue
“best i can do is a chromium only web app”
Works in Firefox for me
WhatsApp is owned by Meta right?
Yes
Not sure why anyone would use it. I certainly wouldn’t.
It’s almost impossible not to sadly, at least if you want to reach everybody in ypur contacts… It was the first popular messaging app here and inertia prevents people from moving to better alternatives now.
Here almost everybody uses Viber or Messenger (I know Messenger’s also Meta)
viber > anything owned by facebool
Threema > anything owned by giant corporations
The reason is the network effect. I want to use signal or rather even an EU based messaging service, but everybody, including businesses, are on WhatsApp in my country.
Yeah. Younger ppl are on telegram, but that’s worse than WhatsApp so not much to be done
they should be using signal
In an ideal world, maybe. Hopefully we will see more of that thanks to RCS, since major players like WhatsApp, Message (Facebook) and iMessage will have to open up and be interoperable with other messaging systems.
So far, though, I’m stuck with WhatsApp (and iMessage for just one person!) and Telegram, nobody uses Signal here
convince new contacts to use signal that probably should be a good starting point
Couple reasons:
WhatsApp was its own company, took advantage of an open market in EU where SMS (and “international” phone calls?) were extra rate charges on mobile phones. Once every one got accustomed to using whatsapp Meta took it over and now we’re stuck with it.
To communicate with anyone outside of the US, where it is extremely popular and is the main interaction with many businesses as well.
Discord on Linux kinda sucks, though. It’s more resource demanding than the Windows version and I can’t even stream with audio.
I use it in the browser on Linux and it works fine. Everything works. They’re electron app is poorly deployed.
Nope, you still can’t stream a window with audio
I just use Discord from my browser where it’s at least sandboxed and doesn’t have access to my filesystem.
Since it’s an electron app anyway it’s basically the same as the app.
I honeslty haven’t had any issues with it. But I’m sire others are. I feel like that’s the biggest challenge since there’s a ton of distros and architectures
Isn’t the web version a full client that works without a phone nearby nowadays?
works without a phone nearby nowadays?
Last time I checked it kicked me out for no reason… But in a nutshell yes.
Yes it is, and because of who owns it, I would even prefer that to an unsandboxed closed source native binary.
Pretty much I’ll never understand why people want their webpages to be apps with access to all your shit
it is convenient mostly for developers, not people.
But a lot of these apps are electron webpages in application form I’ll never understand it
It’s because the vast, vast, VAST majority of people have no idea that many apps are just showing a website. Also, the app version is almost always more efficient in terms of precious phone screen real estate compared to a browser. Apps also remember who you are so you don’t have to login. It isn’t hard to understand why people like them.
That said, many apps are horrible from a privacy perspective. But that is largely hidden from the average user, most of whom simply don’t think much about online privacy anyway.
I hope the ubiquity of irritating ads are the thin edge of the wedge that gets more people interested in ad-blocking, and then perhaps online privacy more generally.
Yes, but no calls, because apparently a browser doesnt have microphone and speaker support
Whatsapp does their calls over voIP anyways right?
Whatsapp has always been behind the curve. Took them way too long to allow gifs.
I actually prefer that—a simple messenger without gifs and stickers, just plain text.
I’m not promoting WhatsApp in this case though. It’s one thing it’s done right, besides end-to-end encryption.
You can install an apps which basically display the WhatsApp webpage like an app, if you use flathub at least
You forgot about Matrix clients (and servers).
Use it in matrix? Or Element One?
Stop using that shit
It’s a web app, you don’t really need a native application for it.
I just use discord via the browser. Why would I allow it to harvest my data as an app?
Because the desktop app works without having your phone around, if I remember correctly. It’s a relatively recent feature.
Why do you need your phone around for the web version?
The web version isn’t a standalone client like Signal, which registers as an additional device with e2e. WhatsApp web communicates with the WhatsApp app, so it doesn’t work if the phone isn’t connected to the internet (in early versions it had to be the same network, if I remember correctly).
I believe WA introduced a feature which allowed the desktop app to function standalone like Signal. Signal Desktop adds a second device with it’s own keys, so contacts send automatically messages to two devices. I’m not sure if it works the same for WA, and if they even have the feature. I don’t have a compatible desktop.
I never mentioned whatsapp, I don’t use it
Oopsie. Seems like I missed discord in your comment. I thought you were talking about WhatsApp.
Push to talk… And I think that’s literally it 😂
i bet you could find some little tool to replace that easily. sucks though
It makes sense. Websites in a browser shouldn’t be able to detect keystrokes outside of the tab
If you use JACK audio, then you can make it Unix-way. Or use hardware PTT.
EDIT: or just mute/unmute mic system-wide
They have to do it on fucking purpose right? Only allow keybinds so you have to get the client so they can collect user data
No, it’s probably because websites running in Chrome might lack the ability to detect keystrokes in the background. If they did, that’s a very very concerning security risk.
If they wanted to force you, they’d just disable the web app lmao
Fair enough
The Windows-only app is way better. You can make calls for example.
Even if it exists, then it does not have to be good. Look at Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft Teams???
I also hate it but unfortunately have to use it for work.
It’s a stopgap but Teams for Linux at least gives you Wayland support, choice of seperate window sharing and background filters
Even if you look at Windows native version - it’s still trash. The chat client is disgusting bad.
I used browser when I had to use it
They made it basically unusable with Firefox, so unless you also want to install Edge it really sucks
forgive my ignorance, I also hated teams when I had to first use it, but now other than it being a microsoft and probably data hungry app, what’s bad about it?
It’s so horribly slow and resource hungry. It sucks a ton of memory, a lot of cpu. Every time I start a video call the cpu fan goes brrrr
That’s just Teams on every platform though?
Absolutely!
No separate tabs to do various things at once. You can pop out chats and calls, but that’s about it.
It also struggles to connect with the right audio device everytime.
theres the open in app button I guess. I wouldn’t want to open any kind of document in the built in one because its so slow to load
It has indeed improved a lot over the last 2 years or so and is now actually quite a mature product, as much as I hate to admit that about an MS product. My biggest gripes with it are its refusal to acknowledge you may be using multiple devices (to this day) and MS’s insistence that a person only do one thing at one time (can’t edit calendar items while checking a chat, for example). Their Linux app is a joke and I’m better off running it from Chrome. The phone app makes the WiFi interface crash constantly and I have to run it off 4G; it is the only app I have this issue with.
Which brings me to another gripe. Teams documentation insists that screen sharing on Linux is not supported, and sure enough you cannot see the option for it while on a call with someone. However if you are in a meeting (with however many people), the option magically appears and works absolutely perfectly.
finally, a decent response.
what do you mean by the multiple devices thing? also my experience has been mostly fine on the linux app, granted I’ve never been in a teams call, so it makes sense.
Apologies for the late reply, still getting a hang of this!
By multiple devices issues I meant the following. Sometimes for example, I am on a Teams call on my phone but want to use my laptop to view screensharing stuff and join the call there too (without hanging up the phone). Teams will insist that my audio switch over to the laptop too and I have to manually disable the audio on the laptop and re-enable it on the phone. It shocks me that such a mature offering from a massive corporation still cannot figure out that I may want a screenshare/audio split onto two devices and ask me at least. Another smaller nag, if I want audio only on the phone, it will constantly bug me to tell me the incoming video is switched off. I kind of understand this however, I get that they want to let the average user know why there is no incoming video, but surely there ought to be a “leave me alone” setting for this.
Every damn thing?
skype > teams
