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Briar is in maintenance mode

briarproject.org

41–50 of 114 posts

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#41
post #32
post #27

Briar will thrive once EU Chat Control 2.0 passes, P2P E2E encryption is the only way to bypass bullshit laws.

Briar is dead because it doesn't work on iPhones. It doesn't work on iPhones because iOS will only allow waking the app from background when there's a push notification. Push notifications have to go through Apple's servers, which defeats the purpose of a decentralized app where your messages (and metadata) can't be traced.

What about a "fake push" that does not leak message contents, sender etc.? Fuzz the time the push notification is sent by a random amount of time and you have something plausibly private given the constraints?

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#42
post #29
post #11

> Last year, we decided that we wouldn’t realistically be able to solve these issues and so we reluctantly decided to shut down the project. If these are actually the problems, then why not throw 200 dollars of GPT 5.6 at these instead of shutting it down? Were these systematic problems (Apple/Google hegemony, for example) that couldn't be beat with code?

I agree. These are classic problems where LLMs really shine. I would be very surprised if GPT-5.6 couldn't fix them.

Claude, Copilot or JetBrains AI could also do it

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#43

> unreliable background operation on android Pretty much every app I have has delayed notifications, and no matter of battery optimization settings can fix it.

It seems to me this only happens if you don't use the app much. Or maybe some apps are "allowlisted", I've never had delayed WhatsApp/Slack notifications.

I use twitch almost every day, its notifications are usually off by 10-15 minutes... /shrug

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#45

> unreliable background operation on android Pretty much every app I have has delayed notifications, and no matter of battery optimization settings can fix it.

It seems to me this only happens if you don't use the app much. Or maybe some apps are "allowlisted", I've never had delayed WhatsApp/Slack notifications.

Not GP, but most of the apps I use that works without Google Play Services (specifically, FCM) have this problem too. Vendor-agnostic notification on Android, and as far as I know iOS, is still painful. Ofc Slack and WhatsApp works fine : they use the Google notification system.

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#46

> unreliable background operation on android Pretty much every app I have has delayed notifications, and no matter of battery optimization settings can fix it.

It seems to me this only happens if you don't use the app much. Or maybe some apps are "allowlisted", I've never had delayed WhatsApp/Slack notifications.

I use signal a lot (probably has 30-60 minutes screen time per day), and still notifications are extremely finicky no matter what battery optimization settings I tweak. So I'm leaning towards some apps being blessed

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#47
post #34
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who spent the time to make this? If those people spent countless hours doing it by hand, maybe they would be willing to spend an analogous resource? It seems reasonable to me if you've already invested so much and paid in time. But yeah that's why I was asking if this was a non-code issue? Because they're presenting it as hey, we couldn't figure out the battery life in this post.

$200 mean very different things to different people. I would never say it's "reasonable" to expect anyone (including maintainers) to contribute money or code to an open source project. Must be easy for you to type these things from your comfortable armchair.

So what's the point of spending months and months and months of your time just to shut down your project when it could possibly be worked out for several $100? Is the situation that the authors have a lot of time and no money? Could we get the project some money if that's the case? Apps like this are so important. Every year they become more critical.

And I would like if someone could please confirm is this related to literal code problems or systemic problems with Apple and Google?

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#48
post #11

> Last year, we decided that we wouldn’t realistically be able to solve these issues and so we reluctantly decided to shut down the project. If these are actually the problems, then why not throw 200 dollars of GPT 5.6 at these instead of shutting it down? Were these systematic problems (Apple/Google hegemony, for example) that couldn't be beat with code?

Try it. The AI will probably tell you that it's, of course, doable. You would have to start by making your own AOSP distribution and require an unlocked bootloader to even attempt to install it. You definitely can throw an AI agent at the problem, but a) it'll be significantly more than $200, no matter how you cut it; b) you'll end up with tens to hundreds of kloc of AI-generated code in a security-conscious context; and c) you can forget about having more than a handful of the most desperate users[1]. Both b) and c) are fatal for a project like this.

The locking down of the Android platform, IME, is a massive, decade-long process[2] with "full speed ahead" corporate backing. Even just a few years ago, you could maybe code around some of the restrictions (if supported by users going into settings and tapping some checkboxes); today it's impossible even with root. To get working "push notifications" outside of the official channel, you need to hack the support into the OS - or accept that you probably will get the notification, but it can be anytime from a few minutes to a quarter hour before your app receives it.

[1] In which case, making them use tens of thousands of AI-generated code "for security" is a clear moral hazard you probably don't want to walk into.

[2] I don't want to judge whether it's a move in the right direction or not - that's a separate matter. But it is happening.

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#49
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. These are classic problems where LLMs really shine. I would be very surprised if GPT-5.6 couldn't fix them.

Claude, Copilot or JetBrains AI could also do it

Emacs with `M-x make-android-bg-app-responsive-dwim` too!

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#50
post #25
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give that a try and let us all know how it goes. :)

I would imagine pretty good if it's actually just a code issue

It's not. Modern Android is increasingly limiting what apps can do. It's a "code issue" in the sense that you can clone the Android sources, overhaul security and power management systems, and build your app to run on that. It'll work. It's doable. Would that be a solution for this project, though?
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