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BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

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Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#281

Post by direwolf20 »

mlrtime wrote: post #273
direwolf20 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several people have scraped every possible phone number from WhatsApp so they know your name, picture, and status if they want it.

So, that doesn't mean we give it away freely because someone was malicious. That makes no sense.

It's already given away freely. Anyone who has WhatsApp can add you as a contact and see this information.

If you are bored and have a computer, you can add every possible phone number as a contact. Not many people do that, but some did.

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#283

Post by mlrtime »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #207
jordemort wrote: post #170

I'm pretty resentful that people in the US are stuck using worse/less featureful versions of products from US companies, while the government in Europe can get these kinds of concessions for their people. If a company is legally obligated to offer a feature to people in other parts of the world, they should be forced to offer it at back home in the US as well, since we can't be bothered otherwise to pass any of these…

That’s because your government aligns itself with businesses, not consumers. > If a company is legally obligated to offer a feature to people in other parts of the world, they should be forced to offer it at back home in the US as well This is a pretty typical self -entitled attitude that Americans have. You chose your government, not the rest of the world.

And you don't have to use any of it, feel free to stop tomorrow.

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#284

Post by irishcoffee »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #145
irishcoffee wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is fucking malicious compliance. Meta knows what they're doing. Wait, you mean passing feel-good legislation has knock-on effects? Who would have thought?

It's not a case of "feel-good legislation", but yeah, this reaction was to be expected. Meta and most other SaaS companies are user-hostile on purpose , not by accident, so it's predictable they'll try to fight it.

That's fair. By feel-good I meant, passing something without trying to see how this would be the reaction. Just put a tiny bit more thought into the edge cases for exploitation. Don't rush it for the moral victory, have cake and eat it too.

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#285

Post by expedition32 »

tonyhart7 wrote: post #252
zarzavat wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternatives suck. WhatsApp strikes a good balance of usability and security. Telegram is too insecure (no E2E by default). Signal is too secure (no chat exports). Nobody has even bothered to make an app that stands toe-to-toe with WhatsApp, even without the network effects.

You literally mention 2 of the biggest whatsapp competitor and you have audacity to says "Nobody has even bothered to make an app that stands toe-to-toe with WhatsApp"

Besides what WhatsApp does on a technical level can be fairly easily replicated.

Getting the 2 billion users is the hard part. But that is marketing not coding.

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#286

Post by usr1106 »

rambambram wrote: post #36

As a European, I would like to know in _which_ European country you're based. I think I know all of them, people from abroad might not. Saying "Made in Europe" is too general for my European liking. ;)

I agree, made in Europe, does not give enogh information. Their T&C gives the details: They are from Latvia.

I dare to claim: A majority of EU citizens know really nothing about Latvia.

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#287

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #207
jordemort wrote: post #170

I'm pretty resentful that people in the US are stuck using worse/less featureful versions of products from US companies, while the government in Europe can get these kinds of concessions for their people. If a company is legally obligated to offer a feature to people in other parts of the world, they should be forced to offer it at back home in the US as well, since we can't be bothered otherwise to pass any of these…

That’s because your government aligns itself with businesses, not consumers. > If a company is legally obligated to offer a feature to people in other parts of the world, they should be forced to offer it at back home in the US as well This is a pretty typical self -entitled attitude that Americans have. You chose your government, not the rest of the world.

> If a company is legally obligated to offer a feature to people in other parts of the world, they should be forced to offer it at back home in the US as well

The obvious implication of the above statement is that the US government should force the company to do this.

>This is a pretty typical self -entitled attitude that Americans have.

When Americans ask their government for the exact same thing that Europeans asked their government for, suddenly Europeans think Americans are "entitled". There's no content to your ideology beyond just "America Bad".

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#288

Post by digiown »

Nextgrid wrote: post #104
vpShane wrote: post #88

This means nothing good, Meta and its products are a privacy nightmare, with WhatsApp having major market share outside of the U.S. People need signal. It's not perfect, but it's the best available. No source code, wait list, special compatibility with a for-profit ad based company. No thanks.

Signal still doesn't allow you to backup/export chat history on iOS into an open format? I think now they have some bullshit proprietary paid cloud storage solution (why not let me use the cloud I already pay for?), but for years they haven't had any solution for iOS at all. Last time I had to reinstall my phone I ended up having to use & fix some Github project that simulated Signal's transfer protocol to simulate a…

Signal doesn't allow you to do that on any platform. The only way I know of to get the data out is via some random github project to extract operate on the encrypted backup from android: https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#289

Post by dotancohen »

dmitrygr wrote: post #213
lxgr wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a strange way to think about a telecommunications service. By the same logic, shouldn’t there be a privacy policy for regular old phone lines? Who knows which third parties are between you and the person on the other end! And speaking about the other end: I have bad news about all the data you share with untrustworthy contacts on WhatsApp… Quite practically, anyone that enables backups (which WhatsApp heavily nu…

old telephone lines did not disclose info about me with merely my phone number. whataspp discloses name, picture, status As for your second comment, updated first comment with: I am not even sure how this is GDPR-compliant if that app is European. They do not have my permission to have my private data, and GDPR does not allow whatAspp to hand it over without my permission either...

  > old telephone lines did not disclose info about me with merely my phone number.
Old telephone lines most certainly disclosed additional information about you. Who you contacted, when, how often.

Did you call that drug dealer every Tuesday evening? Looks suspicious. Did that criminal call you the day before he robbed a store not far from your home? Looks suspicious. Do you call Pakistan twice a week? Looks suspicious. Have you ever called a suicide prevention hotline? A bank other than your own? A mosque? An independent political party?

Your POTS phone was always revealing information.

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#290

Post by nozzlegear »

xvedejas wrote: post #247
nozzlegear wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SMS isn't widespread in the US, iMessage is.

It all depends on age group in my experience. My friends all a bit older than me prefer Messenger for everything. My friends all younger than me prefer Discord. I think my parents and their generation use iMessage, but I use WhatsApp with them. My generation used to use snapchat a lot, I think, but I never got on that boat.

> My friends all younger than me prefer Discord.

That's interesting; I have and use discord myself (owner of a 300+ member server for my WoW guild), but I've never really considered it a messaging app in the same way I do iMessage, WhatsApp, and so on. I think because everyone is pseudo anonymous, it's more like social media to me. Plus I've got the phone numbers and iMessage groups for close friends I've made over discord.

Given its popularity among gamers of all nationalities, I wonder where discord stacks up in relation to the EU's DMA?

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