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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

#341

Post by thedonncha »

franga2000 wrote: post #340
stef25 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SMS Here in EU you pay for that. Soon as you send an image, you get charged extra. Completely useless compared to Whatsapp

Here in EU even the 5 €/month phone plans have unlimited SMS. As soon as you want to talk to someone without Whatsapp, you need to figure out which other apps they're on. Completely useless compared to SMS Have you considered that the EU isn't one country?

In Ireland on my otherwise very generous mobile phone account I'm charged for multimedia SMS texts. They're not included in my SMS bundle.

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

#342

Post by zufallsheld »

my_throwaway23 wrote: post #245
thebiblelover7 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How have you been running it? How did you make it interoperable?

I'm using Element Synapse with the Mautrix bridges. They're all a pain to setup, with a ton of required configuration options each, but once setup, it's mostly transparent where any one chat originates. Reactions, emojis, media, it all just works. The downside, of course, is that voice and video will not work. Oh, and perhaps a ton of initial invitations, one for every conversation you have open. There are open serve…

With this project (https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy/), setting up the bridges gets a lot easier. After the initial setup, upgrading the bridges is painless.

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

#343

Post by raverbashing »

mcjiggerlog wrote: post #2

> 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.

> as it's been implemented as opt-in on WhatsApp's side

Chatting with anyone has always been opt in from the point of the receiver, so I don't get your point?

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

#344

Post by lazide »

zrm wrote: post #331
fooker wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a technical problem How do you do encryption?

A probable implementation is that you bootstrap the initial key exchange using web PKI (if you want to talk to Alice@example.com then your client makes a TLS connection to example.com and asks for Alice's public key) and thereafter you use something like the Signal ratchet thing.

That technical solution is significant and unsolved. I don’t think it would likely work without some major new standards either.

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

#345

Post by j1elo »

direwolf20 wrote: post #263
Grimblewald wrote: post #193

Earlier 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.

To add a datapoint I can share mine: it's me who would be in a position to bootstrap the change in my circles, but I wouldn't use or recommend Signal as Whatsapp replacement until the core features are on parity, including history backups, which have always been a lagging userstory for Signal.

I think they have different (and somewhat opposing, even) targets, Signal wants to be extremely privacy protecting, and it's a disservice to their goals to sell them as a replacement for WhatsApp, because they're not.

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

#346

Post by j1elo »

bornfreddy wrote: post #315
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.

Signal allows you to do local chat export for backup, as opposed to WhatsApp (which only allows backup to Google account on android). That's actually my biggest complaint against WhatsApp and Viber: why don't you allow local backup, or backup to something I control?

Correction, in case you're interested: Whatsapp does (and has always done) allow local file backups. I know because they are just there on the storage:

  Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Backups/
I also know because for many years I was VERY cloud-averse so for several iterations of smartphone purchases I did migrate my chat backups between phones (plain copy-paste of files with a computer) without issues.

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

#347

Post by fph »

pseudalopex wrote: post #156
B-Con wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any time an app has bizarre functionality gap on iOS, I assume it's because of Apple's anti-consumer bullshit app restrictions. No idea if that's actually what's going on, but Apple thinks of their devices as appliances and hates when apps offer pro-customer features.

No. The Signal developers opted out of iOS's backup and export features.

I have no idea why, but I would bet it's because it was sending stuff to Apple unencrypted.

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

#348

Post by B1FIDO »

thedonncha wrote: post #341
franga2000 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in EU even the 5 €/month phone plans have unlimited SMS. As soon as you want to talk to someone without Whatsapp, you need to figure out which other apps they're on. Completely useless compared to SMS Have you considered that the EU isn't one country?

In Ireland on my otherwise very generous mobile phone account I'm charged for multimedia SMS texts. They're not included in my SMS bundle.

Multimedia "texts" are actually MMS. In fact, if you send more than 160 characters, those are also MMS because it's an extension of the SMS standard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Messaging_Service

It is not unusual for there to be hosting or intermediate storage of images and other files, and from the phone you may tap a link or something to download/access that file, instead of having it automatically download and appear immediately, due to bandwidth and resource constraints.

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

#349

Post by j1elo »

I'd like to take the opportunity to mention a tiny very useful app that allows opening a WhatsApp chat directly with any number, without having to register it first as a contact. Great for vacations or similar situations where a quick one-time chat is needed with somebody:

* https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trianguloy...

* Webapp: https://trianguloy.github.io/OpenInWhatsapp_Web/

I'm just grateful for this app, so I thought that maybe other HNers might find it useful.

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