Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#181

Post by corin_ » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:40 AM UTC

max_ wrote: post #180

corin_ wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite a leap to go from your personal anecdotal experience to assuming that the data of hundreds of millions of people must be the same as your experience and was just ignored.

I think you misunderstood me. I was talking about MY case. Not "hundreds of millions of people"

"If the Whatsapp team actually tracked the rate of user engagement with these Desktop/Web editions & compared this to the Smartphone/Tablet apps. They would agree with you."

Surely you are talking about them tracking the rate of user engagement across their userbase, not just the data of you alone?

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#182

Post by Freak_NL » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:52 AM UTC

ddeck wrote: post #127

tostitos1979 wrote: post #62

Why is Facebook/WhatsApp doing the tether to the phone crap? I have a few seniors in the family who have no need of a cellphone (stay at home most of the time). Everyone else in the family uses WhatsApp and these poor people are left out of the look. It is completely stupid as far as I can see. What is the phone requirement buying them?

It's required because your phone is where your messages are stored. Whatsapp don't retain messages/media after they've been delivered to your phone, which is a compelling privacy feature for many. It's also what allows them to serve such an enormous user base with limited hardware. Their technology stack (FreeBSD/Erlang) is pretty interesting, more info here: 2014 talks by Rick Reed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c…

> There's likely no technical reason why you couldn't use a pc instead of a phone […]

Any personal computer built in the last five years can do anything a smartphone or tablet can in terms of processing power and connectivity. A smartphone is a computer with hardware that enables it to use cell phone networks and make calls.

My inner cynic strongly suspects that Facebook and other similar corporations really like the control they have on the overall user experience on the two major mobile operating systems; i.e., eyeballs on a smartphone or tablet are worth more than those on a general purpose computing device.

Too much freedom on a personal computer; with browsers that feature all kind of privacy enhancing add-ons such as ad-blockers and tracker-blockers. Much harder to monetize.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#183

Post by executesorder66 » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:53 AM UTC

ddeck wrote: post #127

tostitos1979 wrote: post #62

Why is Facebook/WhatsApp doing the tether to the phone crap? I have a few seniors in the family who have no need of a cellphone (stay at home most of the time). Everyone else in the family uses WhatsApp and these poor people are left out of the look. It is completely stupid as far as I can see. What is the phone requirement buying them?

It's required because your phone is where your messages are stored. Whatsapp don't retain messages/media after they've been delivered to your phone, which is a compelling privacy feature for many. It's also what allows them to serve such an enormous user base with limited hardware. Their technology stack (FreeBSD/Erlang) is pretty interesting, more info here: 2014 talks by Rick Reed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c…

> It's required because your phone is where your messages are stored.

So are you saying that a desktop PC's hard drive can't handle storage of some text messages but a phone can?

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#184

Post by tehrei » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:57 AM UTC

tostitos1979 wrote: post #62

Why is Facebook/WhatsApp doing the tether to the phone crap? I have a few seniors in the family who have no need of a cellphone (stay at home most of the time). Everyone else in the family uses WhatsApp and these poor people are left out of the look. It is completely stupid as far as I can see. What is the phone requirement buying them?

And this is why I use Discord. The only still sane option. It's a shame you can't use multiple accounts on the phone natively, but there are tools for that.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#185

Post by notinreallife » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:59 AM UTC

aiNohY6g wrote: post #140

1/ phone tethering is the price to pay for end-to-end encryption: the support of multiple devices is not compatible with perfect forward secrecy, as the former require the asynchronous push of messages to all devices while PFS requires synchronicity (at least some kind of, as explained in their white paper here: https://lobste.rs/s/sx2f0r/whatsapp_encryption_overview_tech... 2/ if you don't like the Desktop App (or a…

What did they use to make the desktop app, I wonder. Maybe _electron 1.0_?!?

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#186

Post by kome » Wed, May 11, 2016, 11:12 AM UTC

tostitos1979 wrote: post #62

Why is Facebook/WhatsApp doing the tether to the phone crap? I have a few seniors in the family who have no need of a cellphone (stay at home most of the time). Everyone else in the family uses WhatsApp and these poor people are left out of the look. It is completely stupid as far as I can see. What is the phone requirement buying them?

Switch to Telegram (https://www.telegram.org/). You need a cellphone to activate it, but then you can use it on desktop without problems.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#187

Post by xomateix » Wed, May 11, 2016, 11:14 AM UTC

executesorder66 wrote: post #183

ddeck wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's required because your phone is where your messages are stored. Whatsapp don't retain messages/media after they've been delivered to your phone, which is a compelling privacy feature for many. It's also what allows them to serve such an enormous user base with limited hardware. Their technology stack (FreeBSD/Erlang) is pretty interesting, more info here: 2014 talks by Rick Reed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c…

> It's required because your phone is where your messages are stored. So are you saying that a desktop PC's hard drive can't handle storage of some text messages but a phone can?

Of course, he is not saying that, he is just explaining how whatsapp is actually storing the messages.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#188

Post by kome » Wed, May 11, 2016, 11:14 AM UTC

Freak_NL wrote: post #182

ddeck wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's required because your phone is where your messages are stored. Whatsapp don't retain messages/media after they've been delivered to your phone, which is a compelling privacy feature for many. It's also what allows them to serve such an enormous user base with limited hardware. Their technology stack (FreeBSD/Erlang) is pretty interesting, more info here: 2014 talks by Rick Reed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c…

> There's likely no technical reason why you couldn't use a pc instead of a phone […] Any personal computer built in the last five years can do anything a smartphone or tablet can in terms of processing power and connectivity. A smartphone is a computer with hardware that enables it to use cell phone networks and make calls. My inner cynic strongly suspects that Facebook and other similar corporations really like the…

You are totally right! That's the obvious answer. On desktop you have too much freedom.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#189

Post by everyone » Wed, May 11, 2016, 11:36 AM UTC

An old friend of mine suggested I try out Viber or Whatsapp to contact her. I had a look at them, but they want full access to all the contacts on your phone, its all or nothing, you cant use either to communicate with select people. So I elected not to use them. Just gonna use email.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#190

Post by Freak_NL » Wed, May 11, 2016, 11:38 AM UTC

pmlnr wrote: post #121

How about introducing open protocols instead?

Vastly preferable of course, but that is not in the best interest of Facebook, so why would they? The goodwill (marketing) generated by doing so has to outweigh the loss of control (and income). It appears it doesn't, or they would have done it.

The only other reason to adapt open standards and an open protocol would be government pressure and legislation in the US or the EU.