I've recently been feeling like consumers overseas get better treatment from tech companies than us here in the US. Unskippable ads are illegal in Vietnam, and now Europeans get interoperable messaging in WhatsApp. Meanwhile here in the US we're getting shafted. When are we going to put our collective feet down and say enough is enough?
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
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would be interesting to hear how it works what you have built. Edit: Saw your other comment now.
Frankly I didn't "build" anything. It was mostly just a case of setting up the docker scripts, make sure the volumes have proper permissions and the configuration is sane. The configuration though, I'll take all the credit in the world for wading through, haha. These are not software with opinions included.
My Main Problem is To keep the bridges up to date. I just switched my phone number in WhatsApp and Signal and that lead to a huge ton of trouble for my bridges. After a month of fiddling with it, deleting things, updating, logging in and out of accounts and puppets, I still don't get any messages from signal into element. While it was working for years just fine it gives me the most trouble now that my dad is in the hospital in another country and I have to coordinate with my siblings a lot.
Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shouldnt be hard to convince folks. Everyone i know hates facebook / meta and is just waiting for an agreed upon alternative.
There's one. It's Signal. I keep telling people to use it and they keep not, because people are less likely to do things if they've been told they should do them.
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Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp
#304> With the new WhatsApp interface mandated by the DMA, any BirdyChat user in the EEA will be able to start a chat with any WhatsApp user in the region simply by knowing their phone number. Unfortunately, as it's been implemented as opt-in on WhatsApp's side, this isn't really true. Honestly that decision alone means it's kinda dead in the water.
> any WhatsApp user in the region The regional limit makes it pretty much useless. The only reason I keep a whatsapp account is to stay in touch with my family in law and a few relatives who live in another continent.
> pretty much useless
To you maybe. Not everyone has overseas contacts.
Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
> any WhatsApp user in the region The regional limit makes it pretty much useless. The only reason I keep a whatsapp account is to stay in touch with my family in law and a few relatives who live in another continent.
> pretty much useless To you maybe. Not everyone has overseas contacts.
> Not everyone has overseas contacts
It's not really the "overseas" usecase that is the sticking point for many businesses.
Does your business in Spain ever need to message Brits who are there on holiday? Does your business in Greece ever have customers who drive across the border from Albania?
Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shouldnt be hard to convince folks. Everyone i know hates facebook / meta and is just waiting for an agreed upon alternative.
There's one. It's Signal. I keep telling people to use it and they keep not, because people are less likely to do things if they've been told they should do them.
Without interoperability with the chat platform all the regular people are already using, that's always going to be an uphill battle.
I use Signal to communicate with other tech folks, but good luck convincing your dentist/doctor/etc to send reminders on signal instead of WhatsApp.
Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp
#307Never heard of this before. Why would I use this? I am assuming the messages are not actually encrypted, because on their own privacy page they state that they "process" messages and attachments sent through birdychat. So are they processing the raw unencrypted data on their servers or what? From a cursory glance of their CSAE policy, combined with the above, it seems they would be very eager to comply with the dread…
On the main page it states clearly that messages are e2e encrypted. So all they can collect is metadata.
Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
> region whose government is hostile to privacy Which government?
EU. I don't think it is any better at the national level however.
The EU is not a government. It's a loose economic confederation. And national European governments vary wildly in their positions on this.
Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gtalk did not kill XMPP. Very few people were using XMPP before Gtalk, most people were using AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger and other proprietary protocols. Gtalk supported XMPP to gain traction as a more open messenger and possibly because they implemented the original version on top of XMPP to get it out the door faster. Gtalk did pull the plug on XMPP but that didn't really change much. I don't remember EVER inte…
Jabber was big with the "federated, decentralized" crowd. I recall several colleagues who established Jabber addresses and advertised them, sometimes as their only IM address. XMPP was more than Gtalk, but I think that Gtalk was the "death knell" for XMPP, having absorbed it and sort of claimed it as their own. Anyone who would've used federated Jabber addresses in those days is using Mastodon now.
> Jabber was big with the "federated, decentralized" crowd.
Yeah, just like today, all 4 of them.
Gtalk put XMPP briefly in the spotlight, but for the masses, XMPP never really lived. It was a niche protocol with very niche usage. Just like Mastodon today.