Re:Signal is finally bringing its secure messaging to the ma...
by chubs on Friday February 14, 2020 @06:48PM
(#22331635)
You make very good points about the tradeoffs they avoid :)
I'd be satisfied if they could do some form of eg bluetooth connection between a desktop app and your phone to give a limited desktop experience, however. I don't think that'd be impossible, similar to how whatsapp web really just proxies to your phone (well, best I can tell that's how it works)
Re:Signal is finally bringing its secure messaging to the ma...
by tgsovlerkhgsel on Monday February 24, 2020 @04:32PM
(#22408666)
Doesn't Signal have such a tethered desktop version? https://signal.org/download/ mentions desktop.
Re:Signal is finally bringing its secure messaging to the ma...
by dbrgn on Thursday February 20, 2020 @07:42PM
(#22380017)
Threema Web uses WebRTC data channels to establish a direct connection between phone and browser: https://github.com/threema-ch/threema-web/ Definitely possible (but quite complex in practice).
Because they work. Not ideally, but reliably.
I can pick up my phone, and actually message my friends, and I don't have to debug why my open source Linux client isn't compatible with their open source Windows client, or their XMPP server doesn't want to talk to my XMPP server, or figure out which identifier they're using today.
Signal takes away choice, and delivers a product that works. Which beats a product that is theoretically "better" (multi-device support, desktop support, ...) but in practice cumbersome or just not up to the task (e.g. because my friends aren't using that messenger, or OMEMO messages are not decryptable because someone mismanaged their key, ...)
Moxie made all the right choices, even and especially where unpopular: Aggressive action against alternative clients to keep their existence marginal and ensure a consistently good user experience, phone numbers as identifiers to overcome the network effect, etc.
In order to be useful, a messenger has to support mobile - I will want to talk to my friends when I'm on my way to meet them. So for a desktop messenger it's either flawless multi-device support or failure, and the former just doesn't seem to be achievable yet. A desktop-only messenger is useless because it doesn't meet my needs when I most need it; a mobile-only messenger is a bit annoying, but works 100% of the time, even when I'm using a desktop, because my phone is also nearby.