Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

birdy.chat

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 517 posts

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

#451

Post by prmoustache »

Grimblewald wrote: post #193
joe_mamba wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The regional limit makes it pretty much useless. Sounds like an easy fix. Europe just has to convince the rest of the world to ditch the 15 year old popular US apps ingrained in pop culture and with network effects, and have them switch to their own EU made apps, this way we can all communicate together. :hugs: Until then, let's keep chatting on $US_APP so we can debate on how we're gonna achieve that switch.

Shouldnt be hard to convince folks. Everyone i know hates facebook / meta and is just waiting for an agreed upon alternative.

> agreed upon

That is the main issue.

There are alternatives but waaaay too many already. Some will say Signal, others matrix, xmpp, jami, deltachat, olvid, simplex, briar, tox,...there is a new one every couple of months but none everbody can agree on.

The sad part is we were halfway there with XMPP 2 decades ago when both google and facebook were interoperable with it.

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

#452

Post by greentea23 »

velocity3230 wrote: post #336
amelius wrote: post #199

When can I send messages from a PC running Python?

In a roundabout way, you can. Today, I could write a Python script to connect to my Matrix Synapse server and send a message to rooms bridged to WhatsApp via the `mautrix-whatsapp` bridge.

Despite the opt in limitation, I wonder if this interop capability will allow a bridge that doesn't require you to install whatsapp apk on a real device (unfortunately signal has the same problem). I fortunately kept an old android whose sole purpose is to keep these 2 apps installed. Not ideal, but works well.

Even better if we could ditch the phone number requirement. Many have said to me things like "I use whatsapp not SMS because I am not American", but of course everyone on WhatsApp uses SMS. To stay logged into WhatsApp you necessessarily must have an SMS enabled non-VOIP phone number that you are regularly paying a telecom provider for to receive auth codes.

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

#453

Post by redleader55 »

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. ;)

As an European, you shouldn't discriminate based on country of origin within Europe.

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

#454

Post by rambambram »

redleader55 wrote: post #453
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. ;)

As an European, you shouldn't discriminate based on country of origin within Europe.

You're using the word "discriminate" in bad faith, don't do that. Not every made distinction is discrimination.

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

#455

Post by LexiMax »

altern8 wrote: post #127
LexiMax wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow I feel like GIMP's lack of popularity has more to do with its reputation for having a horrendous and impenetrable interface than its name. At one point in the recent past there was a fork of GIMP named "Glimpse," yet weren't a sudden influx of users who were waiting for a more polite name.

I would say both. BUT, lack of users might just be that it's too late, now. People use web-based tools like Figma, I wouldn't think a lot of people are looking for a Photoshop alternative.

Krita is doing just fine. It has the subjectively "better" name, but also the improved UX.

We're missing the last part of this quadrant with a Krita-like app that has great UX but a bad name, but the preponderance of the evidence thus far tells me that it is more likely than not that the name didn't matter, or at the very least that the UX definitely did matter while the name might not have.

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

#456

Post by prmoustache »

bambax wrote: post #304
prmoustache wrote: post #180

Earlier 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.

We live in a global world and this is super common nowadays. In my own family 2 out of 3 sibling are married with someone who was born in a different continent, one in Asia, the other in Latin America.

And we both met them here in Europe.

People are so welcoming in latin america that when you marry someone, you literally marry the whole extended family. After just a handful of years is not like my partner's aunts and cousins are strangers to me. I can contact them anytime for advice on a topic related to their work/career field and they will do so about mine.

Add to that some cousins and friends who moved overseas and I have many regular contacts that live more than 10000km away from me.

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

#457

Post by fL0per »

altern8 wrote: post #381
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…

What is "the government in Europe"..?

The bodies in charge of the EU governance, probably. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European_U...

Commision [executive], Council (of Ministers/of the EU) [legislative] and Parliament [legislative] are the three most significant in terms of doing/looking like what any sovereign country government would.

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

#458

Post by altern8 »

fL0per wrote: post #457
altern8 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "the government in Europe"..?

The bodies in charge of the EU governance, probably. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European_U... Commision [executive], Council (of Ministers/of the EU) [legislative] and Parliament [legislative] are the three most significant in terms of doing/looking like what any sovereign country government would.

Not sure, Europe isn't a country.

There's the EU, but members of the EU have their own governments.

I can't figure out why people keep getting confused. Turkey and Russia are in Europe, but not in the EU, for instance.

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

#459

Post by j1elo »

marcandre wrote: post #406
j1elo wrote: post #349

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…

Or from any browser: https://wa.me/

In fact that's simply what the app does. It's just a handy way to have it on the phone as a shortcut and not having to remember the details of how to do it. Although with the sibling comments about Whatsapp itself allowing to do all this, the helper app seems less useful now.

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

#460

Post by AnthonyMouse »

chii wrote: post #372
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being implacably stubborn is underrated. People can trivially have two messaging apps on their phone, which means they can all still contact you while using WhatsApp with other people. Then they all slowly end up with Signal on their phone, at which point who needs WhatsApp at all? "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all pro…

> Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. and only those who actually succeed being unreasonable is remembered. The other unreasonable people simply get forgotten or ignored - the vast majority.

Succeeding a small percentage of the time results in dramatically more success than having no one even try.

Also, you're promoting defeatism. If it's just you and you succeed 1% of the time, it still helps a little. If it's millions of people -- even if that's a small minority of the population -- and they each succeed 1% of the time, that's actually a lot of groups getting converted. And it's more likely to succeed the more people in each group who do it.

So the conclusion should be that everybody should do it, since that improves everybody's odds, rather than that nobody should.

Post reply on HN