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Is there any closed source android app that you wish had a good open source alternative?
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this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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WhatsApp
Matrix!
No, I'm not looking for an alternative. I'm looking for an open source client that let's me talk to folks on WhatsApp.
ah, hopefully with the Digital Markets Act in the EU, reliable bridging to Matrix with E2EE intact will come quickly. You can already bridge (e.g. I run mautrix-whatsapp), but its not in an ideal state
Even with a matrix bridge, you still have to run WhatsApp -- the official closed source client. It doesn't solve that problem
I want a way to not have to run closed source software to communicate with users on WhatsApp
Yup, that's what DMA should solve (edit: or, rather, will solve, when Whatsapp fully complies with it)
A closer analogy would be XMPP since that's what whatsapp is based on.
The best open source client for it is Conversations for Android ($0 on F-Droid, $3 on google play except during christmas when it's $0)
depends what you mean by closer -- by features and ease of use, Matrix is the closest you can get to Whatsapp right now. XMPP is good, though!
What I mean by closer is code-wise. On the backend, WhatsApp literally uses XMPP. The big difference is that WhatsApp also has a few proprietary plugins, and a singular client that uses these and hides away the fact that it's all XMPP.
That’s why it’s less janky & doesn’t take minutes to join a room unlike Matrix. WhatsApp to the XTENSIBLE part of XMPP & extended it in a proprietary direction, but at least you have the option to easily do so with XML.
I don’t know what Matrix is giving users other than the eventual consistency model of chat, but most users don’t need the entire chat history of everything—you could argue it is an anti-feature that makes self-hosting too expensive in comparison & also leads to chat overuse/abuse ala Slack/Telegram/Discord where folks treat it as a forum that you can barely search when you have an account while being authenticated & where messages/topics get easily lost. For instance, you can replace an ’announcements room’ with a Atom feed.
Matrix is kinda janky and unstable
I've been using it as my only form of messaging with most of my contacts for several years, many of whom have little knowledge of technology. It's really not.
What about signal?
The signal app does not let me send messages to WhatsApp users.
Use the web app version then
The web app version requires you to install the nonfree app. This is circular logic.
Oh I didn't know it couldn't work without the app. Nvm then
Yeah and not just once. Iirc if their proprietary, closed-source app doesnt call home to their mother ship at least every 2 weeks, then all your WhatsApp Web sessions get deauth'd.
We really need a way to use WhatsApp without using the original spyware app.
Well even if someone creates it, it will still act like a web session. It will just be a frontend. You can't create a separate app with authentication and everything because it's proprietary (so you can't see how authentication works) and messages are E2EE
Of course you can. Its just more difficult.
Well yes but it's almost impossible
Not at all impossible. Just a bit more difficult.
We have alt frontends for reddit and YouTube and loads of other platforms whose main apps suck
Signal I suppose would be the closest analog
No, I'm not looking for an alternative. I'm looking for an open source client that let's me talk to folks on WhatsApp.
I see, fair enough. I don't know if you'll have any luck with a FOSS third party client which does t violate their TOS. There was something on fdroid years ago, a wrapper that effectively allowed you to use WhatsApp Web on another phone (or perhaps even the same one), but it ultimately requried the use of the official clients
If you use one of those WhatsApp web apps, you still have to use the closed source app. It doesn't solve the problem
Yes, I already aluded to this. Point being, I don't think you'll find a viable FOSS front end since it would violate their TOS.
Most people don't care about violating ToS. Its not a risk to an open source project.
It is to
A: the continuity of said project (DMCA) and B: to the individual end users.
You can use FOSS clients for things like Discord or the Google play store but you still run the risk of getting banned.
Shit, I get banned by their shitty ML algos when I do comply with their ToS. I don't think most people care about the risk of having to create new accounts, since they're already forced to do so already.
Ordinarily I'd agree, but for now, WhatsApp is tied to your phone number. I'm not sure if you can use some kind of service to create alias numbers but for many people, that's a big blocker when it comes to making another account following any kind of infraction.
I don't think meta would shift in requiring a phone number per account either,
Oh, I don't have a phone number. I just use a temp one online.
That works. Which service do you use ooc?
Juice SIM or MoneroSMS. It doesn't work, though. Only tried once, but the account was banned a few hours after creation :(
This and so many others that are irreplaceable because of the Network effect. Google Maps, Uber and so on...
However if you are looking for a self contained app to bring into the Foss ecosystem then I would recommend making a game that you like?
My first game that I bought on Google Play was Osmos making a version of this that is open source would make me happy....
Edit: someones already mentioned these below... nevermind!
If youre in the EU then EU parliament forced whatsapp to start developing cross-app communications with Signal, telegram etc. (Source). This was in 2022 and was due to be released in March 2024. Im not sure where it got to though since i dont use whatsapp, though i might start asking some friends to see if its rolled out.
Alternatively there are "matrix bridges". Namely via Matrix which can link messaging apps through matrix accounts and send messages between
Telegram is pretty good, and has open-source clients.
Doesn't let me talk to people on WhatsApp
It soon will
Deadline for that was a few months ago. I'm skeptical