News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end E... by baby on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @08:53PM (#11727187)
> the desktop client requiring chrome is pretty awful

That's rubbish. They are a small company with not enough person-time to develop native versions for all OS. Would you prefer only to have a windows version available? Developing with Chrome/NW.js/Electron allows you to have an app that runs on 3 OS's from the start. I think it's pretty awesome.

Plus you only need chrome installed, it doesn't have to run if I understand correctly. Who doesn't have Chrome installed? Or why would you not install it?

Re:Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end E... by supergreg on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @10:22PM (#11727502)
I've used NW and electron based applications and don't have chrome installed. Why is Chrome needed at all for those to work?
Re:Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end E... by detaro on Thursday May 19, 2016 @04:48AM (#11728864)
To add to what rtkwe said, I assume the Signal client is a Chrome plugin because as far as I know you can't use GCM push messages with Chromium/NW/Electron, but only in Android and Google Chrome.
Re:Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end E... by haffenloher on Thursday May 19, 2016 @07:43AM (#11729425)
Signal Desktop does not use GCM. You can use the extension with Chromium or any Chromium-based browser.
Re:Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end E... by detaro on Thursday May 19, 2016 @08:56AM (#11729761)
Really? Wow, how did I miss that... Thanks for correcting me!
Re:Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end E... by baby on Thursday May 19, 2016 @08:16PM (#11734845)
it's a chrome app, you can launch it independently of chrome. At this point I don't know why they didn't go the Electron route.
Re:Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end E... by rtkwe on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @11:44PM (#11727805)
Electron uses chromium as the renderer.