Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

windowslatest.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 402 posts

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#81

Post by bloqs »

miohtama wrote: post #40

You can use WhatsApp in your browser: web.whatsapp.com No 1 GB or installation needed Why is the desktop app even a thing?

the desktop app allows the taskbar icon to have notification indicators. these work offline, so i can quickly and easily glance at the bottom of my screen to see if I have any messages. these can be read offline, with the taskbar updating still.

the desktop app is considerably faster and more responsive.

the deaktop app allows OS level shortcut keys

the desktop app is easier to work with when applying parameters in programs like excluding it from my VPN or for sandboxing or for isolating network traffic. Or for looking at how much space it takes up on disk. (im not a web developer), it doesnt cause any confusion or mistakes to be made as its logical separation in OS is clear, this is also faster

the desktop app has better keyboard shortcuts that dont collide with your browser, and the same with right click menus

I can easily video call from various PCs while still not trusting my browser with camera/mic permissions

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#82

Post by icar »

userbinator wrote: post #33

I remember doing voice and video calls, and of course IM, on a PC with 128MB of RAM and a single core CPU around the turn of the century. It's amazing how far we've regressed in efficency.

To be fair, the resolution and bitrate were worse, and it wasn't end to end encrypted. I agree, though, that we've regressed.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#83

Post by tcfhgj »

dotancohen wrote: post #72
whatsupdog wrote: post #5

For someone who travels a lot, I would love to have the ability to have WhatsApp on multiple phones (like telegram). I have a separate phone for traveling to US/Canada, which I usually wipe clean before crossing. It's really cumbersome to backup/restore Whatsapp messages from one phone to another. Or I just lose the messages that I send/receive while traveling.

I don't use WhatsApp so I have no idea what that is like. I have telegram running on two mobile devices and two desktops. There is no "moving messages" or "losing messages", I just install telegram or telegram desktop and all my chats appear with all the messages. Everybody is on telegram today, it's not like five years ago when people did not know what it was.

Well, Telegram stores all messages without e2ee in the cloud, so barely comparable.

Matrix gives a similar experience with e2ee though, but you have to save a recovery key for the case you lose access to all your sessions

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#86

Post by rwmj »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #73

Off topic but I hate being forced to use Facebook properties like WhatsApp. I’m forced to be in parent group chats in this accursed ecosystem and give Zuck another DAU.

You can SMS to/from WhatsApp clients. Of course video calling etc won't work.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#88

Post by blitzar »

mrweasel wrote: post #57
happymellon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the desktop app provides absolutely nothing. If it allowed me to do video calls from a laptop, that could be useful but obviously that can't be a feature they therefore offer.

Apparently what it provided was a more lightweight experience at 1/10th the RAM consumption.

maybe they will provide a lite.whatsapp.com version (someone add it to the corporate vision board please)

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#90

Post by rkomorn »

eviks wrote: post #78
rkomorn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use the WhatsApp Web PWA and it allows me to have a dedicated window/app for it? Sure it's a little quirky at times (eg it closes if the browser restarts for update) and it doesn't have a system tray icon, but aside from that, it behaves like a separate app.

> Sure it's a little quirky at times So it doesn't behave like a separate app.

It does in the ways that seem important to GP based on their comment, and aside from restarting when the browser updates or other pedantry, it does.
Post reply on HN