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Standalone Signal Desktop

signal.org

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Re: Standalone Signal Desktop

#311

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

andrepd wrote: post #266
72deluxe wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call me old, but how can a messaging app like this use 130MB RAM? I am exasperated that Skype on my machine is using 109MB with only one conversation window open. We seemed to get by with MSN Messenger with far less RAM, and the features were pretty much identical. It boggles the mind how memory-intensive some of the modern apps are. It's insane.

I get what you're saying and I totally agree with the sentiment, but in this case I can let it slide. It's the only practical way to make a cross platform app for Linux, Windows and Mac. They simply don't have the resources to write and maintain (at least) three desktop apps. I can totally understand that a small company has to make compromises like writing their desktop apps in Electron. That large companies also do…

> "They simply don't have the resources to write and maintain (at least) three desktop apps."

I feel Signal should have implemted the core messaging components as a non-gui program or library or plugin to another Messaging app (e.g. Pidgin). Then if they want their own app, they could have used a lightweight cross platform window toolkit (e.g. WxWidgets or Qt).

Re: Standalone Signal Desktop

#312

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

72deluxe wrote: post #261
aluhut wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow Skype with 109MB?! Last time I've had it installed it was something close to a gig. But then it became a cluttered monster I rather fear so that's not relevant anymore. Same goes for this. I'm happy to give that RAM to Signal since what I get for it, is more then worth it and I have the RAM left. It took me more time and headaches to get people to use Signal on their phones in the first place than it will ever fo…

This is odd. It indicates a badly written application with disregard for resources. If efficient use of something like RAM is blatantly disregarded, what about more important things like performance-critical sections of code? Would you be happy that it is shoddily written? The same approach on a mobile device would be widely condemned due to the hogging of RAM. I don't see why the same metrics cannot be applied to de…

The mobile aspect is important. Nowadays we are starting to see more non-Android Linuxes on mobile phones (like Post market OS or KDE Plasma), so it is important that messaging doesn't hog RAM.

Re: Standalone Signal Desktop

#313

Post by polpo »

baby wrote: post #256
polpo wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could use NW.js instead, which stays up-to-date with the latest Chromium version, including security updates. They usually release on the same day as Chromium. https://nwjs.io/blog/

This is interesting, I feel like NW.js has lost the war against Electron, but I haven't closely been following the topic. Can anyone summarize the latest common opinion on the subject?

There was a period in late 2014-early 2015 where NW.js stagnated, but since then it's been very actively developed. I found this 2016 comparison pretty even-handed and comprehensive; it'd be nice to see an updated version for 2017. http://tangiblejs.com/posts/nw-js-and-electron-compared-2016...

Re: Standalone Signal Desktop

#314

Post by JCzynski »

OldSchoolJohnny wrote: post #268
andrepd wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you're saying and I totally agree with the sentiment, but in this case I can let it slide. It's the only practical way to make a cross platform app for Linux, Windows and Mac. They simply don't have the resources to write and maintain (at least) three desktop apps. I can totally understand that a small company has to make compromises like writing their desktop apps in Electron. That large companies also do…

I disagree completely, a single page application can be used on any of those platforms in browser and doesn't require Electron at all.

And they had one already. Which no one liked.

Re: Standalone Signal Desktop

#315

Post by flukus »

72deluxe wrote: post #261
aluhut wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow Skype with 109MB?! Last time I've had it installed it was something close to a gig. But then it became a cluttered monster I rather fear so that's not relevant anymore. Same goes for this. I'm happy to give that RAM to Signal since what I get for it, is more then worth it and I have the RAM left. It took me more time and headaches to get people to use Signal on their phones in the first place than it will ever fo…

This is odd. It indicates a badly written application with disregard for resources. If efficient use of something like RAM is blatantly disregarded, what about more important things like performance-critical sections of code? Would you be happy that it is shoddily written? The same approach on a mobile device would be widely condemned due to the hogging of RAM. I don't see why the same metrics cannot be applied to de…

> This is odd. It indicates a badly written application with disregard for resources.

Everything about skype indicates that it's badly written. This is a text messenger that can't handle copy and paste operations correctly.

Re: Standalone Signal Desktop

#316

Post by flukus »

72deluxe wrote: post #275
wh313 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because Electron has taken over desktop app development. While it does significantly lower the knowledge barrier to building desktop applications, it does come with a heavy memory overhead.

As an end-user of software, which do you value more?: a. A smaller executable that makes efficient use of your machine's resources b. A developer with less knowledge and experience who is able to write a memory-hogging desktop application

Most end users have 2-4GB of RAM, it's not a choice, 'a' is the only option.

Re: Standalone Signal Desktop

#317

Post by BlackLotus89 »

wskinner wrote: post #48
kome wrote: post #19

Signal Desktop is not really standalone, because you still need to pair it with your phone. And the phone should be turned on. I am very privacy conscious, and I don't use a smartphone, at all, because it's basically a spying device in your pocket. Why Signal is all about privacy and then it forces me to pair it with a telephone? Telegram desktop is really standalone. They require a telephone number too (and that's v…

Why do you trust the very large attack surface that is your personal computer less than the smaller attack surface that is your smartphone?

How do you define attack surface? I trust my personal computer more than my phone.

My personal computer runs an open source bios (coreboot) with an open source operating system (linux) and no closed source software (at least one of my PCs does). My phone on the other hand has many processors running on it (that I know about) that can interact with my device without me knowing and binary blobs (yes even with lineageos and with microg) that I can't control and many parts I can't update or update as fast/easy as my pc.

My point: for most people the attack surface of the smartphone is far larger than the attack surface of the PC

Re: Standalone Signal Desktop

#318

Post by nine_k »

yebyen wrote: post #276
OldSchoolJohnny wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree completely, a single page application can be used on any of those platforms in browser and doesn't require Electron at all.

Is that really improvement if you need to run a browser to run the app? I guess most of us have the browser open all the time anyway, so adding an Electron app is just one more thing, but I know that Chrome on my machine soaks up a lot more than 130MB ... I've got a lot of tabs open right now and I'm not sure how to read the memory usage in Chrome's task manager, but Chrome appears to claim to be using about 450MB ju…

How often do you even close the browser?

Re: Standalone Signal Desktop

#319

Post by mfwoods »

frabbit wrote: post #288
mfwoods wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those that don't want to enable Javascript, these are the hidden Linux instructions: $ curl -s https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt/keys.asc | sudo apt-key add - $ echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt xenial main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-xenial.list $ sudo apt update && sudo apt install signal-desktop

How are we supposed to verify keys.asc? (To be a bit more explicit: searching for either the pub (57F6FB06) or sub(0E46390F) keys on hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net returns no result)

Just because it's on a keyserver doesn't mean it's trustworthy. Keyservers do no verification of any kind on the keys they host.

If you(r system) trust the certificate that https://updates.signal.org/ is using, you should be confident that you are getting the correct keys.

(You shouldn't trust a stranger on the internet, but I am getting the same keys when I download them.)

Re: Standalone Signal Desktop

#320

Post by equalunique »

smcleod wrote: post #121

Other than the memory usage - these are problems I've encountered thus far: - It said it was 'Importing contacts and messages' when I signed in without first prompting me if that was OK. - Importing contacts and messages failed. - Manually importing contacts fails. - Conversations show up, but each message just shows as an error. - Deleting a conversation doesn't delete it, it just makes it as read. - Messages marked…

Most of these problems happened to me when I switched signal apps between phones. It all started working again within the same hour.
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