[HN Gopher] How WhatsApp enables multi-device capability
___________________________________________________________________
How WhatsApp enables multi-device capability
Author : mseri
Score : 111 points
Date : 2021-09-22 09:37 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (engineering.fb.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (engineering.fb.com)
| er4hn wrote:
| Something that is interesting here is on-boarding new devices.
| Since all the encryption is done by each message being sent to
| the {all sender devices (M), all receiver devices (N)} you end up
| with M+N encryptions.
|
| When onboarding a new device, it needs some amount of state in
| order for conversations to have a useful context. So the new
| sender device gets a bundle of recent conversations from who-ever
| onboarding it. I'm not clear on how you could control the amount
| of context or add more state, but that is off-topic.
|
| What I'm wondering is: Does this have a race condition? Say that
| you have:
|
| Sender A knows about receivers {B,C,D} Sender A sends message Foo
| to {B,C,D} Receiver E is onboarded at the same time Foo is sent.
| Is there no state where E does not receive the message?
|
| I'm sure that this is accounted for and out of scope in a high
| level blog post, but I am curious how that part works.
| ignoramous wrote:
| Whitepaper:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210922105222/https://www.whats...
| [deleted]
| tasogare wrote:
| Crazy that an application is proud, in 2021, to be usable on
| multiple devices.
| hnick wrote:
| All that and we still can't use it on 2 phones, or even migrate
| history between Android/iOS when you change phones.
| artiszt wrote:
| for your security, ofc, only for the sake of your security
| [irony-off]
| phaer wrote:
| A feature like that tends to become quite a bit more
| complicated with e2e encryption and and the kind of (potential)
| adversaries WhatsApp attracts due to its size.
|
| This would be much easier for an application where all state is
| stored in clear-text on servers.
|
| And even harder for services which are trying to avoid storing
| metadata on servers as much as possible, such as Signal.
| nicoburns wrote:
| If they're requiring a QR code scan to add new devices
| (reasonable IMO), couldn't they just use that to sync the
| encryption keys?
| ikawe wrote:
| There's so much more state than just the encryption keys -
| e.g. Without a central source of state, you need to sync
| mutations to the state - actions like sends and deletes
| need to be communicated across devices. Suddenly you're in
| the field of distributed systems, which is a complex field.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Let's remind ourselves of a few facts:
|
| Facebook takes part in the US government's mass surveillance
| operations, granting wide, possibly complete, access to users'
| communications. This was revealed by whistle-blower Edward
| Snowden and the documents he had released. Facebook's interaction
| with the NSA or other government agencies is kept secret, and
| will not be admitted, so when Facebook tells you your
| communications via its applications and services are secure, that
| is certainly not wholly the case, and quite possibly not at all
| the case.
|
| Additionally, Facebook uses your communications for its own
| business interests, e.g. to manipulate you into paying for
| services or products whose providers pay Facebook, or for other
| kinds of social engineering. It stands to reason that this
| includes the information Facebook gathers about you from your
| WhatsApp conversations.
|
| There are other messaging applications with multi-device
| capabilities - better or worse - and we should strive to use
| those with open source code, well-established algorithms, and
| transparent, robust and trustworthy governance as projects.
|
| ----
|
| So - please do not use WhatsApp and try to get your friends and
| family to switch to alternative applications. Signal and Telegram
| seem to be the popular alternatives, even if they each have their
| own shortcomings and flaws.
| [deleted]
| satyanash wrote:
| > Signal and Telegram seem to be the popular alternatives
|
| taking your own argument into account, using "popular
| alternatives" is probably not the right criteria here.
|
| Telegram is not E2E by default, so the name shouldn't even
| appear in any list of recommendations.
| YarickR2 wrote:
| Don't you think many/most users dgaf about e2e ?
| greiskul wrote:
| Yes, but if we are giving recommendations to users, and are
| explicitly wanting to take into account mass surveillance
| like this entire thread of conversation is about, e2e is
| pretty much a requirement nowadays, and we should be
| suspicious of any service that doesn't implement it.
| cookie_monsta wrote:
| Agreed. I'm confused as to why Telegram doesn't implement
| e2e by default. It seems to be the number 1 criticism of
| people who would otherwise most likely sign up. Post-
| Snowden, the question around encryption seems to have
| shifted from "why are you doing it?" to "why aren't you
| doing it?". It just seems like an odd feature not to have
| unless you have a strong reason for not wanting it. Is it
| a technical hurdle?
| greiskul wrote:
| > It stands to reason that this includes the information
| Facebook gathers about you from your WhatsApp conversations.
|
| It stands to reason that they miraculously break the end to end
| encryption of Whatsapp?
| artiszt wrote:
| quite right and this is HN. and one may well wonder in how far
| FB does NOT seriously interfer with discussions here [and
| elsewhere, ofc too, for that matter]
| nindalf wrote:
| Are you implying that Facebook moderates discussions here? I
| believe @dang is employed directly by YCombinator and is
| independent of any other tech company.
|
| As for commenting, I can't speak for other Facebook employees
| but I made it a point to never comment on Facebook related
| discussions while I was still employed there. Frankly I
| didn't see the point. Most threads would get so vitriolic and
| emotional that there wasn't any space to have a discussion.
| There would be people spouting conspiracy theories like
| "Facebook controls discussions on HN". No real point in
| engaging in such discussions, I figured.
| annadane wrote:
| Comments that tend to be critical of Facebook tend to get
| downvotes, at least early on in the discussion; it's hard
| not to suspect something may be going on
| bryan_w wrote:
| From the guidelines link at the bottom of the page:
|
| "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing,
| shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It
| degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're
| worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll
| look at the data."
| annadane wrote:
| Yes, thank you, I am well aware of the guidelines. I
| stand by what I said.
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| Can't agree more, it was kind of funny reading they were so
| worried about "user's privacy" while what you state is now
| common knowledge.
| saurik wrote:
| > With this new capability, you can now use WhatsApp on your
| phone and up to four other nonphone devices simultaneously --
| even if your phone battery is dead.
|
| Does "non-phone" here at least include "iPad"? The use case of
| "if your phone battery is dead" is just such a non-issue for me,
| as I have a million other critical reasons to keep my phone
| charged and online... but having the WhatsApp external client--
| the one you install on laptops--available for iPads and even
| other phones would actually open up new use cases for me.
| [deleted]
| senectus1 wrote:
| WhatsApp uses the Signal encryption subsystem and they only allow
| one other machine.
|
| What is FB doing that allows this on Whatsapp but not Signal.
|
| What a WhatsApp users opening themselves up for here?
| david_arcos wrote:
| > The WhatsApp server maintains a mapping between each person's
| account and all their device identities. When someone wants to
| send a message, they get their device list keys from the
| server.
|
| Oh, no...
| bool3max wrote:
| Maybe read the article?
| blowski wrote:
| HN Guidelines:
|
| > Please don't comment on whether someone read an article.
| "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be
| shortened to "The article mentions that."
| ikawe wrote:
| The Signal app never did the "primary device serves message
| contents to companion devices" like WhatsApp did.
|
| Ever since Signal introduced the desktop client, its
| multidevice functionality has involved fully fledged signal-
| protocol sessions between each device.
|
| It sounds like WhatsApp is now adding something like this to
| their client, though it sounds like some of the details of the
| scheme differ.
|
| In principal the signal protocol works fine for a multidevice
| scenario.
| nicoburns wrote:
| My phone having recently died, I've recently discovered a number
| of very annoying limitation to WhatsApp that are making me
| question my use of it:
|
| 1. It's impossible to export your chat history, except for one
| conversation at a time. The only exception to this is if you root
| an android phone which gives you access to the raw database.
|
| 2. It's impossible to move chat history from an android device to
| an iOS device. And moving from ios to android is only possible
| with certain samsung phones.
|
| 3. It's impossible to access WhatsApp from more than one phone at
| once. This is mostly still true with this update. You cannot use
| the mobile app as a "companion device".
|
| Do people not consider their chat histories valuable? I have my
| SMS history going back to 2011 (when I first got an android
| phone). Email can be archived. Facebook messenger keeps messages
| in perpetuity. WhatsApp is a frustrating outlier here.
| kace91 wrote:
| >2. It's impossible to move chat history from an android device
| to an iOS device. And moving from ios to android is only
| possible with certain samsung phones.
|
| It is possible to do this with third party apps. Incredibly
| sketchy looking apps I should add, but they do work. I've done
| it several times both ways.
| j3th9n wrote:
| To answer your question: I don't value chat histories that
| much. In the early days people didn't walk around with tape
| recorders to record everything everybody was saying either. If
| there is something really important said in a chat, you could
| make a screenshot, the same way you would take a note on paper
| with a pencil in pre-digital times, but how often did that
| happen? To write down an address for example, but you could put
| that in the digital equivalent of the rolodex, like
| Contacts.app or Notes. You could even go as far as to save
| information in a personal CRM like Monica.
| nicoburns wrote:
| People did used to write each other letters though, which
| they would often keep. I definitely have some correspondence
| over chat that falls in that category. Perhaps I should go
| back to writing such messages on physical media.
| j3th9n wrote:
| If it's really something worth keeping I would probably
| print it out to keep it safe, instead of letting it
| disappear in a continuing chat, with the risk of losing it,
| because your data is on somebody else's server and you're
| not in control of it.
| seniorivn wrote:
| printed text is not going to be as durable as letters of
| the past
| illyism wrote:
| No, I clear my history from time to time manually. It is very
| useful at times (to search through) but also not something I
| want to stick around.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| "Do people not consider their chat histories valuable?"
|
| Personally, no. I treat it like a real life conversation, if
| it's something I need to note later on, then I'll make a note
| of it outside of the chat app
| stavros wrote:
| I go one step farther and have conversations auto-expire
| after a certain amount of time (e.g. a week) for both
| parties. Scripta volent.
| [deleted]
| sharikous wrote:
| You can transfer your chat history if you back it up on Google
| Drive and pull it from the new device.
|
| I suppose you don't want to do that, maybe because it gives a
| third party access to your history (although it should be
| E2EE), but I am writing this for readers who may stumble upon
| this
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| iOS don't let you backup or restore from google drive, only
| iCloud
|
| Android only let you use google drive. There's no way to
| transfer between the two
| dudus wrote:
| Is the file format different? Can't you just move the
| backup filr from Google Drive to iCloud?
| nicoburns wrote:
| I've no idea if the file format is different (although I
| suspect it is), but you can't even access the file on
| Google Drive.
| er4hn wrote:
| A lot of the replies I see to this are people talking about
| their personal chat histories. For various reasons the trend
| these days is to not consider those valuable*
|
| Where chat histories are valuable and where you see a "store
| and index it all" approach is enterprise chat. Slack, Google
| Hangouts Chat, etc, store and archive all the data because that
| is the collective wisdom of past and present employees and it
| is valuable to search through. Depending on the industry (i.e.
| Finance requires this via FINRA) it may even be mandatory to
| record all communications.
|
| * unless you are moving to a new device, but even then it is
| rare to search that far back in history.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Moving from Android to iOS and vice versa has been a nightmare
| since forever and I don't blame WhatsApp for that.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Pretty much everything else has transferred over very
| smoothly for me so far. My passwords are all in Bitwarden so
| I had instant access to those. And my contacts are all in
| Google Contacts which transferred similarly easily. I've had
| to log in to a lot of apps, but other than that it's been
| pretty easy apart from whatsapp.
| mikro2nd wrote:
| "Do people not consider their chat histories valuable?"
|
| No, I consider them a positive liability and delete
| messages/conversations as soon as they're done/actioned.
|
| _When the Brown Shirts come to get you, it 'll be your own
| message history they hang you with._ (Only slightly :))
|
| Question: You have your SMS history going back a decade. How
| many times has that proven useful?
|
| I, too, used to keep messages & emails "forever" until I
| realised that it was doing nothing for me but becoming a
| maintenance burden. Now I have "max 24 months" retention policy
| and have _never once_ needed to retrieve an email older than
| that.
| alksjdalkj wrote:
| > When the Brown Shirts come to get you, it'll be your own
| message history they hang you with. (Only slightly :))
|
| There are certainly some countries where this isn't a
| hyperbole. But in all others, suggesting that Nazis might
| come take you away because of messages you've written in the
| past is in pretty bad taste, IMO.
| seniorivn wrote:
| tell it to those cancelled for decade old tweets
| mometsi wrote:
| Would it have been in bad taste to say it during
| Hindenburg's administration? Your personal data may be more
| durable than benign government.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| > No, I consider them a positive liability and delete
| messages/conversations as soon as they're done/actioned.
|
| Does other side delete it too? Otherwise if you delete you
| create a bigger liability in case the other side start
| claiming things that have not happened. For that reason it's
| vital to keep an audit trail and of course you need to have
| good op sec with that.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| Hopefully this will make using the WhatsApp bridge on Matrix much
| easier - one of the reasons I haven't gone all in on Matrix. If I
| can have a device setup that is linked, then I don't have to run
| a VM or (hopefully) have it even installed on my phone.
| 2T1Qka0rEiPr wrote:
| Perhaps this is an odd question - but can someone comment on why
| this was posted today? The blog post is from July, so I'm
| wondering whether it's past the initial experimentation phase or
| something?
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| WhatsApp only just recently told me this was a feature. So yea
| I assume it was only fully rolled out around now.
| vdfs wrote:
| Still in Beta, I've been using it for ~3 weeks
| Malakun wrote:
| But only one phone, yeah...
| RMPR wrote:
| That's an interesting and long awaited update. But there's no
| mention of a new desktop app, or new web app. I wonder how users
| in the beta will be able to test this.
| rd07 wrote:
| End-to-end encryption on multi-device? I think Matrix and Element
| solved this before.
| heeen2 wrote:
| verifying between all parties involved is incredibly clunky
| though
| vurpo wrote:
| Getting the full benefits of E2EE (that is, protection
| against active attacks and not only passive eavesdropping)
| requires verification out-of-band in any case. Verifying is
| entirely optional on both Matrix and WhatsApp (not verifying
| doesn't affect the functionality of the chat), but gives you
| the same benefit on both platforms.
|
| But then again, WhatsApp actively hides the feature away
| behind menus and pretends it's not really a thing, while
| Element is a bit more pushy about telling you about it.
| londons_explore wrote:
| With more and more services going e2e encrypted, the application
| servers no longer have any special role or logic. All data they
| store is no longer privacy or security critical, and they no
| longer need ACL's.
|
| I'd therefore like to see future chat services like this to just
| have one big S3 backend (or similar).
| SMAAART wrote:
| It has been a while.
|
| Also now, when a conversation is archived it remains archived
| even if someone in that group posts something. Before when
| someone in an archived conversation posted something the
| conversation would be unarchived.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| I could run chat programs on multiple computers in the 90s, so
| today we're in a worse state than then. What gives?
| skymt wrote:
| Did those chat programs encrypt messages end-to-end while
| syncing message history across devices?
| gregoriol wrote:
| Does anyone with knowledge on the subject know how different it
| is from what Matrix/Element does? or any other implementation?
| greggman3 wrote:
| Now if they'd just stop the spam and get rid of the phone
| numbers! There is ZERO good reason to require a phone number in
| 2021 nor to access my contact list of which the majority fo the
| people I talk do I don't have their number.
| p4bl0 wrote:
| Can anyone with good knowledge of the protocol explain the
| differences between what WhatsApp is rolling out now and what
| Signal has been doing for a long time now?
| fsflover wrote:
| Why does it matter if WhatsApp is closed and non-auditable?
|
| Upd. See also:
|
| WhatsApp whitepaper removed sentence about never having access
| to private keys (twitter.com/shiftreduce)
|
| 491 points by Aissen 8 months ago | 106 comments
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25685446
| nicce wrote:
| Indeed. Signal client at least on Android uses reproducible
| builds.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| This feature (or lack thereof) is pretty much my biggest gripe
| against Signal. I still don't understand why they won't let you
| use the same account in paralel on an Android tablet. And the
| weird part is they provide no explanation for this limitation
| while this limitation does not exist for iPad users.
|
| If this new feature proves to work as advertised, I might as well
| sell my soul to the Facebook devil and go back to WhatsApp full
| time due to how frictionless the experience is (and everyone in
| the EU already being on it), and leave Signal only for private
| info sharing, as I grew tired of convincing people in my circles
| to move to Signal for privacy only to receive complaints that
| X,Y, Z features from WhatsApp are either missing, buggy or super
| frustrating to use on Signal. Oh, and receiving calls on Signal
| for Android is a mess (known bugs for years) where some calls
| just won't come through to my phone even if the desktop client is
| ringing, only to have it show up as a missed call notification on
| my phone a few minutes later. Unacceptable.
|
| I do support the Signal team for their work and what they stand
| for, but my patience (and that of those around me I convinced to
| switch from WhatsApp) is wearing thin.
| dannyw wrote:
| Signal's refusal to allow me to export message backups is also
| unbelievably frustrating.
| phaer wrote:
| ...on iOS that is? At least on Android, exporting backups
| seems to work fine (for me).
| dannyw wrote:
| That's correct. I switched from iOS to Android, which means
| it still affects me as a now-Android user.
| [deleted]
| up6w6 wrote:
| Can anyone explain to me the main obstacles for Signal to
| succeed ? I keep thinking about how strange is that we can
| maintain complex open-source projects like linux but we cannot
| join forces and create a good open-source messaging app, which
| is a thing almost everyone with a smartphone uses, I know its
| not the same thing and you need someone to take care of
| infrastructure etc, but I still think its strange.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Because getting to 1 billion users is hard. Google tried it.
|
| Basically people have been using their favourite messaging
| apps for years now and if they're satisfied they aren't going
| to switch.
| cheschire wrote:
| I'm confused by your post. I use signal seamlessly between my
| desktop, iphone, and ipad using the same account. I can take
| photos with my phone, post them to a chat, then go back to my
| desktop to type longer messages more easily.
|
| Is your problem that a phone is required to be the primary
| device when doing this?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Then you clearly haven't read my post thoroughly. I
| repeatedly mentioned my issues being with Signal not allowing
| multiple instances on Android devices using the same account,
| while you're talking about Signal on Apple devices.
| cheschire wrote:
| No need to be snarky. I didn't say you were wrong, and
| clearly I don't know about the problems with signal on
| android as I don't have those devices.
| petemir wrote:
| His problem is that he has Android.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| This is why I use Telegram as a "good-enough" alternative to
| the tech monopolies. No, you don't get E2EE without opting in
| (and Secret Chats don't exist at all for groups) but it's one
| of those products that makes joy in the hearts of anyone,
| enthusiast or no, who uses it. Its clients are fully open-
| source and the man behind it, Pavel Durov, is truy a hero in my
| book for his consistent stance against big powers, from state
| actors to tech giants.
|
| I _also_ selfhost a Matrix homeserver and bridge all-the-things
| to it, possibly its finest feature but there 's no way any of
| its client implementations is going to spark joy in the hearts
| of the mainstream.
|
| It's important, much like in our politics, to find the fine
| line between the extremes so that we can leverage and exploit
| good-enough choices for more freedom for everyone. I use Linux
| but for most people it's enough to at least get them to
| consider some FOSS alternatives in their Windows or macOS
| environments. We can use these small victories to chip away at
| the mortar of surveillance.
|
| I will never, ever, return to Facebook products. The global
| damage wrought by that company will go down in the history
| books, I'm sure. So let's pick those things that are "good
| enough" as our chisels for a better future for all.
|
| EDIT: Telegram has a chat export feature if you're a WhatsApp
| user considering the switch [1].
|
| [1] https://telegram.org/blog/move-history
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| >Pavel Durov, is truy a hero in my book for his consistent
| stance against big powers, from state actors to tech giants.
|
| Oh yeah, especially the recent Smart Voting fiasco. A true
| hero.
| bmarquez wrote:
| I've used the chat export feature of Telegram before deleting
| my WhatsApp account. It works well and convinced me to use
| Telegram over Signal in cases where I had contacts on both
| platforms.
|
| (Personally, I'm also bitter that Signal Android supports
| backup while Signal iOS doesn't...and transferring from one
| iOS device to another isn't considered backup).
| Dylovell wrote:
| Is IOS blocking the feature?
| discobot wrote:
| telegram is certainly non a tech-giant with 500M users
| trabant00 wrote:
| This comment proves that convenience trumps security and
| explains WhatsApp's success.
|
| I also want to note that you can use them in parallel, no need
| to switch or convince other people to do so.
| nindalf wrote:
| > convenience trumps security
|
| Your comment implies that security is being traded off in
| favour of convenience. Could you explain how?
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| Facebook is not transparent about how data collected
| through WhatsApp is used
| (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/business/facebook-
| whatsap...).
|
| WhatsApp "harvests "data linked to you," including your
| device ID, for "developer's advertising and marketing." It
| also collects your contact info, user ID and device ID for
| ominously vague "other purposes."
| (https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2021/03/06/stop-
| usin...)
|
| It's true Facebook only collect metadata and can't read
| your actual messages normally, but that's still important.
| (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/why-metadata-
| matters)
| NilsIRL wrote:
| Signal does have this feature. It's just that their mobile
| clients do not support it (as a "slave" device), from what I
| understand this is no different than WhatsApp multi device
| feature
| shawnz wrote:
| This article is regarding a new beta feature in which you can
| have multiple "host" devices connected to the same WhatsApp
| account. It's not the same as the previous "WhatsApp
| Web"/"Signal desktop" experience.
| NilsIRL wrote:
| This article specifically mentions "nonphone devices" which
| means it is not much (if at all) different from Signal
| desktop
| shawnz wrote:
| But you can now use them even if the phone is turned off,
| unlike previously where the "web" devices just provided a
| view of data from the phone.
| grandchild wrote:
| The Signal desktop client has always continued to work
| even when the phone was off.
| shawnz wrote:
| Interesting, I wasn't aware that was supported. Thanks
| for the information
| smichel17 wrote:
| Yeah, the implementation described in the article seems
| almost exactly how I understand Signal has been doing it
| all along. It's purely a client software choice not to
| allow a phone to be a secondary device. There's a fork
| which adds this feature to the Android app, though I
| forget what it's called.
| ikawe wrote:
| > It's not the same as the previous "WhatsApp Web"/"Signal
| desktop" experience.
|
| The traditional "WhatsApp Web" and "Signal desktop" are
| completely different experiences though.
|
| Though the details differ, WhatsApp's new approach,
| outlined in this article, is much closer to what Signal has
| always been doing since it introduced Signal Desktop -
| which, once linked, functions independently of your phone.
| nicoco wrote:
| ctrl+F "XMPP"... No? OKay, I'll be that guy.
|
| Multiple devices, multiple platforms, E2EE, gateways to other
| networks... my XMPP server handles all of that, and I convinced
| non-tech users to use it mainly because of the great Android
| client Conversations.
|
| Yes, there are some rough edges because there isn't a iOS client
| that matches Conversations in terms of user friendliness. But
| siskin-im in on its way there.
|
| I also have had complaints from friends but mainly because I am a
| shitty admin...
|
| Oh, and having your phone number as your username is something
| that really is important for you? Use Quicksy then.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > and I convinced non-tech users to use it mainly because of
| the great Android client Conversations.
|
| And that's the only client in existence that supports the XEPs
| required for XMPP to be a viable alternative in the modern
| world.
|
| What about iOS? What about desktop?
|
| > I also have had complaints from friends but mainly because I
| am a shitty admin
|
| What if I don't want to run my own XMPP server? How do I find
| the one that supports message carbons, file uploads,
| encryption, push notification, client state indications...
| MattJ100 wrote:
| > And that's the only client in existence that supports the
| XEPs required for XMPP to be a viable alternative in the
| modern world.
|
| That's not true, but admittedly that information is not
| trivial to find right now for end users. It's a known
| problem, and people are working on a nice comparison of XMPP
| client capabilities so people can make a more informed
| choice.
|
| > What if I don't want to run my own XMPP server? How do I
| find the one that supports message carbons, file uploads,
| encryption, push notification, client state indications...
|
| https://compliance.conversations.im/ or for something less
| overwhelming, https://joinjabber.org/
| dmitriid wrote:
| > That's not true, but admittedly that information is not
| trivial to find right now for end users.
|
| So, it's true for end users.
|
| > It's a known problem, and people are working on a nice
| comparison of XMPP client capabilities so people can make a
| more informed choice.
|
| There can't be more than a handful of usable XMPP clients
| in existence. The fact that "people are working" and
| "information is not trivial to find" speaks volumes about
| the state of XMPP clients.
|
| > or for something less overwhelming
|
| This is the reason XMPP is more-or-less dead for most
| users: "information is not trivial to find", "overwhelming"
| and so on.
|
| Meanwhile already in 2016 Daniel Gultsch wrote what's
| expected of a mobile client for XMPP, and this can be
| easily extended to all other clients. [1]
|
| Instead, 5 years later there's Conversations, "information
| is not trivial to find" and "check your server for
| compliance".
|
| [1] https://gultsch.de/xmpp_2016.html
| MattJ100 wrote:
| > Instead, 5 years later there's Conversations,
| "information is not trivial to find" and "check your
| server for compliance".
|
| If you think nothing happened in 5 years then you're very
| much mistaken. As I said, the information should be more
| easily discoverable, and I linked you to some of the
| projects working on that aspect.
|
| You seem to confuse "not easily discoverable" with
| "doesn't exist", which are different things when it comes
| to the kind and amount of effort required to fix them.
|
| My own work is on Snikket, which is a project working on
| XMPP clients for all platforms with a modern feature
| baseline. My belief is that simply telling people to "use
| XMPP", and requiring them to find appropriate clients and
| servers is solving the problem from the wrong end. XMPP-
| based solutions should be attractive to people in their
| own right. Whether we like it or not, the average person
| does not (and will never) choose to use software because
| it "uses open standards".
| f1refly wrote:
| While I'm with you on xmpp, calling Conversations "great" is
| dishonest. While the foundation is good and the xep support is
| great, the developer refuses to adapt the client to any
| conventional design standard, requiring the users to use either
| blabber or monocles to achieve some familarity. Besides that,
| message search is not able to link the message into context,
| while showing both timestamp and associated chat, requiring the
| user to go into the chat himself and scroll up until the
| message in question shows up.
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