I mean... that's not especially unreasonable; FOSS-first is absolutely a reasonable move, and there's a whole discussion upthread about using the browser version or dialing in with an actual phone. Certainly some people are stuck, but many people can absolutely avoid this.

Not run SW is possibly last resort, or not an alternative at all. But selecting, proposing FOSS alternatives, or run it in the browser if possible are two ways of trying to make the situation better.

As others have said, Jitsi is a for many meetings a good FOSS alternative. And if that does not work, use Zoom in the browser.

Run software from vendors who have demonstrated they are trustworthy -- or, at a minimum, actively AVOID software from vendors (like Zoom) who have repeatedly demonstrated that they are NOT worthy of trust.

No alternative if the people you want to reach, or want to be reached by, are available only on a specific, closed platform.

It's a pick your poison type of situation I think. I personally run FOSS where I can, and compartmentalize the environment where I can't but I still want the benefits.

I guess that’s what I’m getting at. Like this is for work, my company has dictated that we do SSO into the desktop app. I was wondering if there was something I was missing besides the browser version.

But for personal use- totally makes sense

> What’s the alternative?

A desktop operating system that comes with a proper security and permission model (i.e. not a standard Linux system). Right now, QubesOS seems like the only candidate here.

I can't believe Android and iOS are now >=15 years old and Linux is still struggling with this.

IME, a lot of people learn about Wayland's security improvements over Xorg and then immediately consider them deal-breakers. Stuff like global hotkeys and shared clipboard access.

MacOS manages to implement all those things while having sandboxing. Though at the expense of many popups (program X wants to do Y) right now. Maybe not the perfect solution either but it is not an unreasonable thing to ask for IMO.

Which is wild to me because my immediate thought upon learning was ok, how long until I can get off Xorg?

Fedora 35 came with Wayland by default, it was so smooth I haven't even noticed :) I only learned about it when I reflexively invoked an x-something tool and it said command not found.

For any service I want to use that has a website, I absolutely use that instead of the app.

I can close it and know it is closed.

Unless PWA fans have their way and succeed perverting browsers into an app platforms, that is.

Hey it's better than electron.

GNU/Linux phones (Librem 5 and Pinephone), but they aren't polished yet.

I would argue this is the exact opposite of what we want to do.

The primary cause of this problem is the conventional desktop OS which has no meaningful security model.

IOS and Android have the correct approach to mitigate this, strong sandboxing and mandatory access control.

GNU/Linux phones bring these problems to mobile, which considering how much of our lives are on these devices, is an absolute disaster.

Here you go: https://qubes-os.org

So I actually use this as my daily driver, but I think it illustrates the point quite well.

The only way to meaningfully secure a GNU/Linux desktop is to run multiple instances of it through a type-1 hypervisor.

For a mobile device, a user prioritizing privacy, security and FOSS would be much better served by GrapheneOS.

Brave talk seems browser based.