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    Posted on 21-02-28, 14:28 (revision 4)
    Dinosaur

    Post: #908 of 1282
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 4 days
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    Since this brave new world where we live in is severely screwed up as is, we're expected not only to carry a cellphone of the "smart" variety (with all the vomit that comes with mobile UI/UX), but also to rely on a specific IM application as phone calls, text messages, and emails are considered to be "old-fashioned, ugly, unattractive, and non-frictionless" (to not mention that our mobile networks are anything but reliable!). Oh, and if you aren't in the network, don't expect to be accepted as a fully functioning member of our modern society!

    Just like most countries around the world, Soviet Venezuela people chose the worst possible option: the Facebook-owned-and-operated WhatsApp. Needless to say, I've resisted it as hard as I can, although I'm paying a heavy price in exchange (like "my family won't talk to me", or "I can't interact with most non-food/banking commerce over here"). And despite the recent events related to the ever-privacy-unfriendly policy changes now being enforced by the application ("Share your data with Facebook OR ELSE!") which have led to a (reduced) exodus of users to the competition, noone seems to give a fuck on Soviet Venezuela. Seriously, I'm seriously pissed off when someone (be it a person or a retailer) gives you his/her/its phone number, just to also hear "Please, WhatsApp only/do you have WhatsApp?" next to it - this is why I don't even participate on our local neighbors' association, as they exclusively meet over WhatsFuckingCrapp :/

    Anyway, it seems you MUST be a member of one of those society-mandatory clubs, otherwise I hope you enjoy implicit (and sometimes explicit!) ostracism since composing a email or dialing a phone number is simply Not Done These Days™ by most people (most likely including your family, friends, and corporations). Look, I'm not opposed to IM networks (even proprietary ones!) - I've had accounts in MSN/WLM, ICQ, and even AIM, but that was back when having one was little more than a curiosity, basically something that only young people would do (I wasn't a heavy WLM user, but I spent most of my time talking to people there, from local classmates to Estonian console hackers and Spaniard Sonic fanfiction writers).

    Then Skype and Whatsapp happened, and everything went to hell. First there was the total ban on 3rd-party clients (while the former networks of yesterday didn't liked people using anything but their bloaty clients, they didn't went around with elaborate obfuscation, mandatory cellphones, and instabans), then the rise of the smartphone led to our current state of affairs.

    But enough ranting! Here is what I'm looking from a IM network nowadays:

    Must have:
    - FREE. For as long as I live in Soviet Venezuela, I'm afraid I couldn't afford anything priced on foreign/hard currency due to obvious reasons.
    - Open-source clients, including the official one!
    - Allow 3rd-party clients, instead of banning users for using reverse-engineered less sucky/compatible clients.
    - Clients for both Real Computers™ (including Linux) and cellphones (I guess that means Android)
    - Lightweight, NATIVE clients for all applicable platforms. Leave the hundred-megabyte Electron abominations far away from my eyes, please. Memory is scarce and VERY EXPENSIVE, and so is bandwidth, so a web view is inadmissible too!
    - Actually, a Pidgin/libpurple plugin (based on a native web API, not a fragile HTML/JS scraper) would be my ideal PC setup.
    - Local backups. Like: "push button, generate backup, done". (Or, if in PC: "browse to $PATH to find your unencrypted message dumps")
    - Message synchronization between multiple devices, because I'll want at least two installs (phone+PC). This also implies that I must be able to use the same account on whatever devices I want at the same time (unlike WhatsFuckingCrapp)
    - No ads, EVER. I know that running successful messaging networks costs $LOADS_O_DOUGH, but "monetization" has become a cursed word that I don't want to listen anymore in my life.

    Nice to have, but can live without:
    - A way to turn off emojis. Yes, I'm serious - emojis are worse than COVID!
    - End-to-end crypto. Look, I get that everybody spies on everybody, but I don't believe that "moar crypto" can fix society, and I'm not one of those paranoid nutters that believe that the NSA/CIA/FBI/KGB/FSB/CCP/GCHQ/$NATIONAL_SECURITY_AGENCY/Jeff Bezos' secretary is watching every single keystroke you send. Plus, for insecurity theaters I already have banks! Still, if it has E2EE, I want to be in control of my own goddamned messages, thanks (ever tried to dump your WhatsFuckingCrapp messages from your own devices without having to jailbreak/root them?)
    - Audio/Video calls.
    - A web client (that does not require Google WebComponents® junk so it can actually work on non-Chrome browsers, or being tethered to a cellphone), for those emergency cases.
    - Not be tied to a cellphone. If I could register with a email address instead of a phone number (that can change or stop working at any time without notice), and only add the phone as a extra security factor, that would be ideal.
    - Open protocol.
    - Open-source server software.
    - I know this is a very long shot, but if I'm going to use your official client(s), I want a non-braindamaged UXtard-free experience, please?
    - Federated network (like email and XMPP has been since forever)


    Here are the popular alternatives I hear mentioned every time the IM situation topic is discussed around the Internet (+: good, ~: unsure, -: bad):

    1) Telegram
    + Open-source client.
    + The official Android client is available on F-Droid (albeit with noticeable delays when compared to official releases, as upstream is SLOW to release the sources).
    + 3rd-party clients explicitly allowed.
    + Governments around the world hate it!
    ~ Made by a couple ex-Soviet dudes, headquartered on the UAE. Doesn't inspire me so much confidence but it's creator is on Putin's kill list, and I hate Putin for many other reasons, so the enemy of my enemy is my friend?
    ~ Has E2EE, but it's not enabled by default (you must explicitly start a "secret chat" for that, which is not a straightforward procedure). Group chats are in the clear!
    ~ Has been gaining traction very slowly over here, mainly among lefties chavistas (yet even those already are on WhatsApp due to inertia), but I know of a few commercial places that offer it as an alternative contact channel. At least one of my uncles is aware of Telegram and may already have an account.
    - The dreaded "M" word is being flaunted over: there are talks about adding ads to the official clients later this year!
    - Server software not open-source.
    Veredict: this one might stand a chance. Might.

    2) Signal
    + Open-source client and server software, so you can even run your own private servers.
    + WhatsApp uses the same protocol, so we know it's secure (bar Facebook backdoors)
    + E2EE by default.
    - It spams your phonebook contacts with messages telling them that you're now on Signal, which is a big no-no if you actually care about privacy!
    - Led by a massive, well-known asshole, Moxie Marlinspike. As a general rule of mine, I avoid using software made by massive, well-known assholes. This guy seems to be as obnoxious as Moonchild, JWZ, or your average Mozilla: for example, he considers "federation" to be a bug and not a feature!
    - Speaking about why Moxie is a cunt, third-party clients are explicitly discouraged, even if built from the official sources. You're free to use the sources, as long as you use the resulting binaries to connect to your own servers, and not to the main Signal ones. This is also the reason of why the official Android client will never be available on F-Droid, because Moxie is strongly opposed to have any alternative .APK distribution points outside Google Play (while you can now download the .APK from the official Signal website, that's a very recent development, and Moxie really wants you to not sideload for the sake of "updates"). I could care less about paranoid nutters considering Signal the most secure app ever if you can't even bring your own client because Moxie is an asshole, so those recommendations are worth even less than the Sovereign Bolivar, basically.
    - "Backups? Why do you even want that?! Messages are a liability, y'know". Our asshole-in-chief and its followers consider that keeping the history of your own goddamned messages (that for some of us are not disposable) is antagonist to what Signal represents... despite being heavily promoted as a WhatsFuckingCrapp replacement, which does (encrypted) backups! You can't even make this shit up. Sure, you can come up with a compatible 3rd-party client that supports backups... oh wait, Moxie doesn't want YOU using that in the official network, because he knows better than you.
    - Nobody you care uses it, zero user base over here.
    Veredict: OH HELL NO! I don't install assholeware on any of my devices (other than systemd, of course), sorry.

    3) Threema
    + Swiss-based.
    + No cellphone (or even a email) required.
    ~ Recently opensourced?
    - Nobody you care uses it, zero user base over here.
    - Not free ($3)
    Veredict: Nobody outside Switzerland and Germany cares.

    4) Element (Matrix)
    + Fully open-source, from client to server.
    + There is no such a thing like an "official client" (so every client is 3rd-party by design), but having said that, Element (formerly riot.im) seems to be the most popular client (to the point that it's considered the reference client), and it's even available on F-Droid.
    + E2EE is now the default (since May 2020)
    + A cellphone number doesn't seem to be mandatory (or even allowed these days, if the Element site is to be believed), you can register with a lowly email address instead.
    + Federated by design.
    + Can have bridges to other networks (from IRC to, -yes- WhatsFuckingCrapp)
    ~ Setup may not be straightforward. Technically there is a official server (matrix.org), but its use is not mandatory. Creating a new account can generate, y'know, "friction", so it fails the granny test. On the flip side, you can run your own servers and have your group use those instead.
    - Nobody you care uses it, zero user base over here.
    - Element is made on Electron (so it's already disqualified), hence another client is to be preferred.
    Veredict: All you can expect from a nerd-friendly network. Too bad normies (i.e. the people you want to talk to) will never even learn that it exists :/


    So... ugh, looks like I'll be trying Telegram in the not-so-distant future, and miserably failing to convince everybody (starting with my family) to fuck the Zuck and use something else. All other networks might as well not exist, and Signal is dead to me.

    ...or I can continue doing what I'm currently doing: talk to nobody and live at the margin of society :/

    Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™
    Posted on 21-02-28, 15:59
    Custom title here

    Post: #986 of 1150
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 6 days
    Last view: 1 day
    Posted by tomman


    ...or I can continue doing what I'm currently doing: talk to nobody and live at the margin of society :/
    An underappreciated option.

    --- In UTF-16, where available. ---
    Posted on 21-03-01, 01:22

    Post: #135 of 158
    Since: 10-29-18

    Last post: 628 days
    Last view: 7 days
    Posted by CaptainJistuce
    Posted by tomman


    ...or I can continue doing what I'm currently doing: talk to nobody and live at the margin of society :/
    An underappreciated option.

    Personally, I'm also partial to that option. Unfortunately, having family I still keep in touch with in entirely different countries makes it a bit less viable :/

    I still have no idea what I'm talking about.
    Posted on 21-03-28, 23:17
    Post: #22 of 27
    Since: 08-01-20

    Last post: 1089 days
    Last view: 989 days
    There's been a spate of literally autistic teenage boys in England being set up in absurd Kafka-esque "push the button to make the kitschy 1950s-style Nazi death ray fry London" entrapment plots. In one case, the police and prosecution were able to get every message this kid ever sent, and every message sent by the people he communicated with, on Telegram. So there is apparently a backdoor to Telegram somewhere.

    https://prism-break.org/en/all/#instant-messaging

    Looking at PRISM Break, there are a number of options you didn't mention.

    If I were you, I'd ask various dissident/criminal* communities about this, as they have the motivation to know best.

    I think Curtis Yarvin's Urbit is becoming a big deal among dissident Righties. Some of the more intellectual thinkers use it, as do old hats.

    I taught one of my cousins to buy insulin (and fentanyl test strips to make sure it wasn't cut with fentanyl, in true Chinese fashion and as they do with nootropics) from pharmacies in India. I'm considering buying permanent aromatase inhibitors and metformin from the same to lose lockdown weight and cope with decreasing fitness as I age. Good for cancer drugs too. I had to set up a tutanota email, buy a burner phone/sim, and get a fake ID to buy a private mailbox in case the FDA wants to violently sodomize me for importing stuff that is over the counter in nations that don't consider their populations cattle to be farmed for tax revenue.

    I2P is supposedly better than Tor as a platform for building anonymous private distributed network apps, but that's literally just something I read and I have no idea if this is true or not. Granted, the person who wrote it was someone who used to pull 500,000 a year in Silicon Valley, so I'll take his word for it.

    * In order of least to most risk: internet trolls, pirates, computer criminals (their instructions on messaging them to remove ransomware are informative), illicit pharmaceutical importers/distributors/buyers, Nazi/Antifa/Eco-Anarchist radicals that have successfully avoided arrest, people with porn habits that are varying levels of illegal (too many categories to count), actual zoosexuals/pedophiles, and so on. As long as you approach it in a neutral fashion they are usually very helpful, just follow all the usual precautions to prevent anything from being traced back to you - and make it very obvious that you're not one of them, just someone living in a nation that is being used as a political football by the powers that be and who needs some advice on laying low.
    Posted on 21-03-29, 12:24 (revision 2)
    Dinosaur

    Post: #923 of 1282
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 4 days
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    The tl;dr version for that is "I don't want to talk to nobody that cares", and "I want to get added into a list".

    No, see, the goal is to talk to REAL PEOPLE, not other paranoid nutters and explicit criminals!

    Yes, I'm aware that Telegram is "not secure", but if Durov is on Putin's kill list, that's an issue that he and his team will eventually have to address, given the competition.

    In the meanwhile, no decision has been made, and I continue to be a social outcast :/

    Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™
    Posted on 21-03-29, 20:09
    Post: #23 of 27
    Since: 08-01-20

    Last post: 1089 days
    Last view: 989 days
    If you take a look at the link I posted earlier (which is a curated list of software designed to evade the PRISM surveillance system used by the NSA; hence PRISM Break) you'll see a number of links relevant to your interests. I'll post long-form, for my own use in the future.

    1. Briar, P2P messaging app.

    https://briarproject.org/
    Some sort of cell-phone based peer-to-peer mesh network(?) civil breakdown and anti-authority app. Works with Tor too.

    https://code.briarproject.org/briar/briar/-/wikis/home
    ^Technical details on their protocols and software stack.

    https://briarproject.org/how-it-works/
    ^Same as above, but quick rundown version with infographics.

    https://briarproject.org/about-us/
    ^People involved.

    2. Silence, encrypted text messaging app. Exactly what it says on the tin, with all the limitations (threat can see who, when, and how often you communicate even if they can't see the contents).

    https://silence.im/

    3. Psi, cross platform XMPP client. Skim the Psi wikipedia link below for a quick rundown, but I think it meets almost all your needs.

    https://psi-im.org/

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psi_%28instant_messaging_client%29

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMPP
    ^Has a ton of extensions, including connections to stuff like AIM and others. Worth a read.

    4. Conversations, Android XMPP client. Would work well with number three above since it doesn't have an Android app. Has recommendations on XMPP servers to run in the link below.

    https://github.com/iNPUTmice/Conversations

    5. Dino, XMPP client for Linux.

    https://dino.im/

    6. Retroshare, P2P communication and piracy filesharing software based on GNU Privacy Guard.

    https://retroshare.cc/

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroshare
    Posted on 21-04-08, 20:45 (revision 3)
    Dinosaur

    Post: #932 of 1282
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 4 days
    Last view: 1 day
    Nice list of apps you've got there. Now get my mom, my cousins, uncles, friends, random strangers selling totally not fake hard currency, the guy from that catalog website, and the shops where I buy my food to switch to those completely unknown, extremely paranoid-nutter-friendly apps that nobody but a couple nerds (and not even endangered journalists!) use.

    In other news, Signal is pivoting from assholeware factory to buttcoin scam startup ("scamtup"?):
    https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-payments-messaging-cryptocurrency/
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713827
    https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/signal.html
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26724237

    What Could Go Wrong?™

    Uh, everything? But the reactions on it are funny as hell:
    - Half of the nerds are pissed that their Snowden-approved, quasi-proprietary, shit UX, beloved secure chat app of choice is deviating from the Troo UNIX® Way™, that is, "do one thing and do it well" (which is an arguable fact in the case of Signal, where backups are still seen as a bug and not as an feature)
    - The other half are pissed because Moxie went with some random guy and its shady buttcoin, instead of picking whatever popular shady buttcoin these specific nerds are vested into. You can even see how these nerds try to roast alive Moxie's partner-in-crime when the guy himself shows up on the HN's discussion threads, which is somewhat atypical for the place.
    - Oh, this is initially available on the UK (a country that has much better payment methods available), and it's specifically geoblocked in USA, because obvious buttcoin scams are, y'know, very illegal there... not to mention that they would have the SEC/IRS/FBI on their asses in no time.
    - But hey, the popular consensus among deranged nerds is that "we still need buttcoins to ensure freedom of speech", or some similar BS!
    - "What this chat app needs is a built-in way to send money to random strangers family and friends over the net", said nobody ever, except maybe for Xinnie the Pooh's CCP.

    In the meanwhile, Telegram remains as a serious contender (it's gaining a bit of popularity over here among news places, now that WhatsFuckingApp is quite crowded - the most popular local radio station now runs a Telegram group for news side by side with their Zuckerborg Networks groups). And Matrix will remain as a non-option for the People You Know for as long as it remains a nerd-friendly network, which is a sad fact of life, and one that feels like a rusty dagger through your hearth :/

    UPDATE: Oooooh, so Durov tried to pull the same shit with Telegram, just to get cockblocked by the SEC/IRS/FBI too! Man, what the hell is wrong with chat applications developers!? Users will NOT pay for chat apps, it's that simple. Either you give up and start asking for donations instead (where the same 3 nerds will pitch a few bucks a month), or you become Fuckbook and start milking your users' personal data, ensuring an eventual (if very delayed) death.

    Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™
    Posted on 21-07-13, 22:39 (revision 1)
    Dinosaur

    Post: #967 of 1282
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 4 days
    Last view: 1 day
    I'm now on Telegram. Kill me now.

    But at least I've installed the client from F-Droid, setup their 2FA (made a password), used this to add my account to Pidgin, and found that over half of my phone contacts are already there... including the TV repair guy I had visited ONCE.

    Sure, Put-it-in is watching my messages (in good companion with Xinnie and half of Silicon Valley), but my phone is assholeware-free, AND I can use my Real Computer™ running Third Party Native Applications™ on top of my cellphone.

    I'm zen... for now? Expect moar bitching to come Soon™!

    (insert preemptive "fuck you Moxie" here)

    Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™
    Posted on 21-07-14, 19:59
    Dinosaur

    Post: #968 of 1282
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 4 days
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    Whoever at Telegram had the great idea of putting those stupid moronic animations for braindamaged kids (read: "stickers") as the starting point for new chats ("type some text or touch the sticker to say something") should be sent to Siberia too.

    Knock off that shit, people. We're not preschoolers, "stickers" are nothing but useless noise! Thankfully this is a non-issue with Pidgin, as it doesn't support stickers, and will never support stickers (hopefully). They were a moronic idea back in the MSN Messenger era, and still remain so, 20 years later.

    Not everybody using a chat application is a deranged teenager girl, folks.

    Oh, cleaning up the contact list (because I totally need to talk to that TV repair guy again, that most likely even forgot that had Telegram installed) is of course undiscoverable mystery meat navigation. On the official/FOSS clients, you're supposed to open a chat, tap the profile picture, then look for the "Delete" option in the "three small dots, formerly known as hamburger" menu. Shit UI/UX everywere. GUD JORB, GUYZ!

    In the meanwhile, there are no non-Electron Matrix clients for Android, it seems. Looks like those guys really don't want other nerds (much less normal people) using their nerd-friendly network, of fucking course.

    Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™
    Posted on 21-07-18, 22:12
    Post: #160 of 203
    Since: 11-24-18

    Last post: 9 days
    Last view: 6 days
    Yeah, the world sucks. Unfortunately I'm in the same boat and since IRC is pretty much dead now...

    I have resigned to use Discord. It's the one that works best as an alternative so far, would've preferred something based on an XMPP-based technology (decentralised and Open Source) but since XMPP also died a few years ago... Discord it is.

    At least it is possible to block the spam coming from channels and "servers", even though you can't do global settings. Can't say I'm happy with it though.
    Posted on 21-07-19, 01:24
    Dinosaur

    Post: #970 of 1282
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 4 days
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    My few interactions with Discord communities thankfully have been through IRC, via dedicated bridge channels/bots.

    If your "server" doesn't offer a bridge, it doesn't exist to me.
    And of course, Discord still bans 3rd-party clients and forces you to use their bloaty webshit (complete with Electron abominations if you want "standalone" crapps), so yeah... nope. My sanity is worth way more than "being social".

    And yeah, pure IRC communities are largely dead by now. Rizon is a cemetery of dead channels, and the recent implosion of Freenode ("prince of Korea", HA!) basically killed the largest remaining dedicated IRC community (yes, there is Libera Chat, but... many people is never coming back)

    Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™
    Posted on 21-07-19, 05:14

    Post: #358 of 449
    Since: 10-29-18

    Last post: 9 days
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    I've never been a fan of IRC, instant messaging etc, I prefer forums. Never used Discord either. I'm mostly active on certain subreddits these days (old.reddit.com of course).

    Where did I put my walking stick now...?

    My current setup: Super Famicom ("2/1/3" SNS-CPU-1CHIP-02) → SCART → OSSC → StarTech USB3HDCAP → AmaRecTV 3.10
    Posted on 21-07-19, 21:11 (revision 1)
    Dinosaur

    Post: #971 of 1282
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 4 days
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    I decided to register a Matrix account as a sort of "plan B C Z X", just in case I actually need to talk with other paranoid nutter nerds people not liking Telegram, and in hopes that someday someone comes up with a non-Electron cellphone client - the PC part will be served by purple-matrix, because Pidgin is the one and only IM client I need, present, past and future.

    Spoilers: Matrix failed the Granny Test™. HARD. Harder than Elon Musk crashing memecoins on a smug-powered Boeing.

    Step 0: install a client.
    There are no Debian .DEBs for purple-pidgin, and I'm not in the mood of the "make && make install" dance. Luckily purple-pidgin is on Ubuntu repos, so I took their source packages and rebuilt them on my Debian - easy as pie.

    Step 1: pick a homeserver.

    Since Matrix is fully decentralized and federated (unlike your average cellphone vomit), you need to bring your own "homeserver", There are a few lists online, and I ended picking one at random from this one. Of course your granny will stop right here, and stick to WA instead. One more thing: for now, choose your homeserver wisely, as you can't change it once registered (you'll have to dump your account and make a new one). From what I understood, "account portability" is on the TODO list for Matrix devs, so don't get your hopes high :/


    Step 2: make a new account.
    On nearly every PC application of yesteryesterday you just register an account at some website, then logon with that on your client. On cellphones, you need to give your crapp of choice your phone number, and you're done. On Matrix... oh boy. You're supposed to register either from your client or online. Guess what you can't do on Pidgin... that's right, it means you gotta use another client, or a web client. OK, fine, let's go the web client way---

    Your browser can't run Element

    Element uses many advanced browser features, some of which are not available or experimental in your current browser.

    Please install Chrome, Firefox, or Safari for the best experience.
    Use Element on mobile

    iOS (iPhone or iPad)

    Android

    Go to element.io

    FUCK THIS SHIT!
    Of course Seamonkey is not Chrome or "latest Firefux", so I'm navigator non grata, and since nearly every homeserver only offers Element, it means the web way is riiiight OUT. It also means at this stage I'm pretty much forced to register from another client, then dump it once I've got my account. This is LAME. After reviewing a list of clients and hearing some recommendations, turns out there is one on Debian repos fit for the task: nheko - it's native (Qt 5), even! At this stage my level of blood rage is rising fast to "boiling" levels. Your granny already died twice yet she is still firmly on WhatsApp. Oh, and even after resorting to nheko, I still got punished with hot ReCaptcha hell. Lovely.


    Step 3: Find some real people to talk with!
    Someone sent me a link to join a room. Those are unusable on Pidgin, instead you want the Room ID (a string that starts with "!" and may end with ":name.of.some.homeserver"). Except that the one I got didn't worked on Pidgin... and for that matter, neither did on nheko (I still haven't uninstalled it despite having braindamaged cellphone UI on desktop, for troubleshooting). Instead I had to be invited by someone else - the invite way works fine on Pidgin! Dunno why the room ID didn't work, and of course your granny won't be talking with anyone else anyway - she already died twice while trying to figure out Matrix!

    Long short story: Matrix is a disaster even among nerds, and fucking hopeless for normies.

    I guess I'll keep Telegram for normies, and Matrix for... who knows? At least it's awesome to be back on Pidgin... if only they had an Android version...

    Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™
    Posted on 21-07-19, 21:25
    Custom title here

    Post: #1012 of 1150
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 6 days
    Last view: 1 day
    RIPx2 my granny.

    --- In UTF-16, where available. ---
    Posted on 21-07-20, 08:47
    Post: #162 of 203
    Since: 11-24-18

    Last post: 9 days
    Last view: 6 days
    Posted by tomman

    Of course Seamonkey is not Chrome or "latest Firefux"


    ... Wait, what is this, 2004 all over again? I thought The Powers That Be(tm) made a treaty that banned "browser only compatible with xxx" in 2005 specifically due to what happened in 2004?

    For those who wonder; In 2004 IE6 was the browser to use, so many websites of course used JavaScript to inform users to only use IE6. Then came Firefox which was better in every way... Except these websites blocked it. Lovely.

    FFS, the web is built on open standards (supposedly). By all means, recommend browsers but don't block the ones you do not support!
    Posted on 21-07-20, 22:22
    Custom title here

    Post: #1013 of 1150
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 6 days
    Last view: 1 day
    Posted by wertigon
    Posted by tomman

    Of course Seamonkey is not Chrome or "latest Firefux"


    ... Wait, what is this, 2004 all over again? I thought The Powers That Be(tm) made a treaty that banned "browser only compatible with xxx" in 2005 specifically due to what happened in 2004?

    Everyone forgot their history.

    --- In UTF-16, where available. ---
    Posted on 21-07-21, 00:36
    Dinosaur

    Post: #973 of 1282
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 4 days
    Last view: 1 day
    The difference between IE and Chrome is that IE was actually horrible and nobody liked coding for it, but Chrome appeals to the new generations of hipster webshit, so developers embrace it with tons of love. And broken Javascripts that somehow work there.

    In other news, TIL Telegram has usernames, so no need to disclose your phone number to random strangers if you don't really want! Except that "tomman" (and my other usual variations of it) were already taken! Fortunately, my backup nick ("dilworks") was not, so any username that is NOT that one is NOT ME!. This is not a problem on Matrix, because not only phone numbers are not needed, but they are completely unsupported! In fact, you don't even require a valid email, so write down that password safely! (Fortunately my nick wasn't in use on the homeserver I ended picking, the aptly named "nerdsin.space")

    Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™
    Posted on 21-07-21, 07:24
    Custom title here

    Post: #1014 of 1150
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 6 days
    Last view: 1 day
    Posted by tomman
    The difference between IE and Chrome is that IE was actually horrible and nobody liked coding for it, but Chrome appeals to the new generations of hipster webshit, so developers embrace it with tons of love.
    IE BECAME horrible with lack of updates. IE6 wasn't bad when it came out. It was bad when it was five years later and MS hadn't really done anything with it.

    --- In UTF-16, where available. ---
    Posted on 22-02-08, 00:14
    Dinosaur

    Post: #1046 of 1282
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 4 days
    Last view: 1 day
    Status of the Messengers, year 2022:

    - WhatsFuckingCrapp is still the fucking king in Soviet Venezuela. Now even banks, teloos, and the communist state of Maduro is pushing for its increased use for communications to customers/The People™. WHY. Why Meth hasn't been forced yet to forcibly disconnect Soviet Venezuela if we're THAT evil? Also, the network effect is so strong that, short of a complete blockade/shutdown, looks like it is impossible to break the addiction here!

    - Telegram clings to life. Many installed the app during The Great WhatsApp Threat, but promptly forgot about it. My Telegram account sees little use, with sporadic messaging with only ONE user. Ironically, one of my uncles (which is a heavy WA user, as he even avoids doing phone calls/SMS these days) flat out refuses to install Telegram because "gotta avoid the Russians" (and better don't argue with people with politics background, unless you want to sever family ties for good). This one came out of the blue, but aside of that, Telegram's adoption in Soviet Venezuela is "meh".

    - Thankfully nobody ever talks about the assholeware known as Signal here, while Hackernews get their panties in a bunch at the mere mention of "YOU CAN'T HAVE MY PHONE NUMBER, MOXIE!!!"... despite being forced to use WhatsFuckingCrapp (which also relies on phone numbers) for family/work reasons. Seriously, what's the point of having a phone if you don't want to give out your number to people that might be interested into communicating with you, which is, like, the whole purpose of phones since Alexander Graham Bell made the first phone call centuries ago?! I get it, USAian telcos are terminal cancers, SIMswaps are a real threat model there, blah blah blah, but... why do you even have a phone in first place?! Look, as much as I hate proprietary software, Silicon Valley, and TLAs, I do not hate phones as a communications device!

    - Matrix continues to be a big fat zero outside (very niche) nerd circles (as most nerds these days hang out on fucking Discord, sadly). I've yet to find a client for my cellphone that isn't webshit (all of them are either Element -which is bloaty Electron-, Element clones, or Fluffychat which is the only one not built on Electron... instead it uses yet another hipster app framework from Google: Flutter, which seems to be more bloaty pseudo-native junk on Yet Another Hipster Programming Language, Dart), and the Pidgin plugin is buggy and often loses messages, while all other desktop apps I've tried that aren't Electron webshit (Nheko, and another Qt-based app I found on Debian repos) are even more unusable bugfests with round avatars and -in the case of Nheko- total UI/UX trainwrecks.

    tl;dr: everything is terrible and it's only getting worse, because nobody gives a damn :/

    Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™
    Posted on 22-02-18, 21:43 (revision 2)
    Post: #7 of 62
    Since: 01-29-22

    Last post: 627 days
    Last view: 627 days
    Posted by tomman
    - WhatsFuckingCrapp is still the fucking king in Soviet Venezuela. Now even banks, teloos, and the communist state of Maduro is pushing for its increased use for communications to customers/The People™. WHY. Why Meth hasn't been forced yet to forcibly disconnect Soviet Venezuela if we're THAT evil? Also, the network effect is so strong that, short of a complete blockade/shutdown, looks like it is impossible to break the addiction here!

    It's the most popular here in the UK too. It's made funnier when people say 'fuck Facebook' and they migrate to WhatsArgh.

    Posted by tomman
    tl;dr: everything is terrible and it's only getting worse, because nobody gives a damn :/

    Pretty much.

    Posted by tomman
    The difference between IE and Chrome is that IE was actually horrible and nobody liked coding for it, but Chrome appeals to the new generations of hipster webshit, so developers embrace it with tons of love. And broken Javascripts that somehow work there.

    In other news, TIL Telegram has usernames

    Lol yeah, exactly. That, and it's always been hip to shit on Microsoft, no matter if they did anything good, but it's always been hip to spunk over Google for some reason... Oh, don't get me started on polyfills that are only tested in Chrome when the entire fucking point of a polyfill is to supplement support for WebComponents (which is also a piece of shit anyway intended to slow down non-Blink browsers).

    I'm also surprised you didn't know that. It's literally in the settings menu.

    Posted by wertigon

    FFS, the web is built on open standards (supposedly). By all means, recommend browsers but don't block the ones you do not support!

    The W3C is just a front for Google at this point. Also, bad copypaste 'web designers' will be bad copypaste 'web designers' who want to cram loads of crap into a page to show off to their other 'web designer' mates on whatever the current trendy messaging service of the day is. :x

    Thankfully it's not got to the point of blocking out even latest Gecko entirely and forcing Chrome as of yet on any website I've ever encountered except maybe MEGA (though lagging out anything that isn't latest Blink seems to be absolutely fine and in fact encouraged).

    ---

    Meanwhile, the rapid release cycle crap has created a reincarnation of the 'Opera 10' effect on user agent strings. Apparently some pretty big names such as Bethesda's site are breaking due to misreading 100 as 10.0, which is rather amusing.

    (Speaking of Opera, gotta love how they were the only semi-major browser to give a shit about the standards, and now they're just generic CCP 'Chrome clone with extra crap tacked on top' browser, it's one of the bigger blows to the European software industry and the 'beginning of the end' imo)
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